Case of suicide in which death resulted from a wound in the neck by an earthenware jug: with remarks / [Robert Spittal].

  • Spittal, Robert, 1804-1852.
Date:
[1842]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Case of suicide in which death resulted from a wound in the neck by an earthenware jug: with remarks / [Robert Spittal]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    s blood and lift the body, while she went and reported to the gover¬ nor. The governor and doctor to the jail attended immediately. No. 4. H. M., a convict in said jail, declares and concurs with the preceding witness (No. 3) as to the state the deceased was found in. She was quite dead. Besides the above declarations, I may briefly state a few fur¬ ther particulars which I have obtained chiefly from the matron, who, as already mentioned, was one of the first who saw the de¬ ceased after the fatal act; and for this I need offer no apology, as, in a medico-legal point of view, every circumstance connected with the case, however minute, ought to be stated, and the most apparently trifling may subsequently turn out of paramount im¬ portance, when applied to the discrimination of those cases in which doubt exists as to whether the deceased has come by his death by accident, by suicide, or by the hands of another person. ls£, The door of the cell was locked during divine service, and found so by the matron on her return from chapel. 2d, The amount of blood on the floor was “ very great,” and there was a “ great quantity in the pail1’ belonging to the cell, over which the matron thinks u the deceased must haye leant her head there was also a “ good deal” in one of her shoes, which was on her foot, the other being off; her hands were “ par¬ tially bloody,” as also were her clothes, especially about the neck and breast; and the “ muslin strings of her cap were very bloody ;” lastly, her Bible, from which she had promised to learn the first psalm, was sprinkled with blood at the specified portion. 3d, Several pieces of the jug were lying in the blood on the floor, besides the portion found lying at her side, all bloody, as mentioned by the matron in her declaration, which she has in¬ formed me w'as that to which the handle is attached. 4*th, The spoon—a common iron one—was found lying near her, “ very bloody. It seemed to have been much handled,” “ and much used in the act;” but it was “ by no means sharper than other common iron spoons, nor at all altered from its ori¬ ginal form no attempt had been made to sharpen it. 5th, The deceased was found lying “ on her side;” ct her face had a ghastly grin upon it.” The matron felt her arm,—“ it was cold and stiff.” As stated in the evidence, I visited the deceased a short time (in about half an hour) after she had been found in the condition described. The body had been before this, by the matron’s or¬ ders, lifted from the floor to the sleeping-bench in the cell; and the blood, reported to have occupied the floor near the deceased, had been wiped up, and thrown away. Her clothes and hands were still bloody, and her extremities cold and rigid. On examin¬ ing the neck, which w7as streaked, and otherwise marked with dried blood, an irregular wround was observed immediately in