The signs of drowning medico-legally considered.

  • Forrest, James, M.D.
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The signs of drowning medico-legally considered. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    infiltrated with blood; and the whole of these infiltrations, ante- riorly and posteriorly, were evidently of a recent character. No injury of the skull was observed, and the brain was healthy. About two ounces of dark fluid blood escaped in cutting through the skull at its posterior portion. On reflect- ing the integuments of the abdomen, the muscular tissue was observed to be of a darker red than usual. On opening the chest, the viscera were found healthy. All the cavities of the heart, as well as the aorta, were completely empty, and only a small quantity of dark fluid blood was found in the lower vena cava. The upper portions of the lungs, as the body lay on the table, were also found nearly empty of blood ; the lower depending portions were somewhat congested. The trachea, when cut across, was filled with a frothy bloody fluid. The viscera of the abdomen were healthy, but were of a darker colour than usual; and the liver particularly was dark in colour externally, being distended with dark fluid blood, which flowed freely from it when an incision was made into it. On opening the stomach a considerable quantity of food was found, composed in great part of young peas, scarcely altered in consistence or appearance. Some very dark- coloured mud, having almost the appearance of coaly matter, was found in the stomach. Upon dragging the bottom of the well in the garden formerly referred to, abundance of black mud was found, apparently identical with that found in the stomach.’'1—(MS. Report.) No diagnosis of the case is given in the report. There can be no doubt whatever that death was caused by drowning. The frothy bloody fluid in the trachea, and the black mud in the stomach, occurring in connection with the signs of apncea, establish this fact. There must have been some water in the stomach, the water of the well conveying the black mud into the stomach during the act of drowning. Perhaps it was afterwards lost by a careless handling of the body. 1 This able and carefully prepared report was drawn by a distinguished physician in Falkirk. All the other cases used to illustrate the diagnosis of drowning in this chapter occurred in my father’s practice, or in my own prac- tice. If the diagnosis of drowning is restricted to the post mortem appearances, the relative length of limbs and relative depth of water in which the body was found must lose necessarily much of the importance hitherto attached to them.