Medico-legal report of a case of infanticide, with additional remarks on the foetal lungs / by Alfred S. Taylor.

  • Taylor, Alfred Swaine, 1806-1880.
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medico-legal report of a case of infanticide, with additional remarks on the foetal lungs / by Alfred S. Taylor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    in otlier words, there is only one case recorded in which, assum- ing 1: 132 to be the real minimum after respiration, we should have been justified in asserting that respiration had not taken place. It appears, then, that Ploucquet’s test has some advantage over the absolute weight of the lungs. But this advantage is gained, so to speak, at the expense of the very principle on which a numerical test ought to be founded, viz. an exact equality in all those particulars in which equality is attainable. In employing the weight of the lungs, or their weight as compared with that of the body, as a test of respiration, we compare an individual obser- tion with an average previously ascertained ; but this average has been shown to vary with the weight of the body, the weight of the lungs increasing more slowly than the weiglit of the body, and the proportion which the one bears to the other diminishing as the weight of the body increases. Hence, in order to construct a cor- rect standard of comparison, we ought to contrast the weight of the lungs, both absolute and relative, before and after respiration for different weights of the body. This is done by combining tables XIV. and XV. ^ Table XXXII. No. of Obs. .y . , p Average weight of Weight of Proportion Before After ^ Body Lungs Before After Kesp. Resp. Before After Before After Resp. Resp. Resp. Resp. Resp. Resp. 1 60 20000— -30000 27030 26888 5 41 869 J : 50 1 : 31 23 138 30000— -40000 35263 34638 714 1061 1 : 49 1 : 32 27 69 40000— ■50000 44932 43549 744 1141 1 : 60 1 : 38 21 29 50000— ■60000 55555 5-4021 996 1332 1 :56 1 : 40 17 U 60000— ■70000 64679 64251 1032 1431 1 : 63 1 : 45 4> 9 70000— ■80000 77382 76127 1317 1379 1 :58 1 : 55 1 2 80000— ■90000 87336 88041 1226 2193 1 : 71 1 : 40 2 3 90000 & up wards 96330 113783 1491 3273 1 : 64 1 :34 If, after the observations which have been made on the static 1 lung tests, any doubt temains of the inutility of these tests, and it is thought advisable still to employ them for medico-legal pur- poses, a table on the principle of the foregoing, but founded on a ; larger number of observations, will form by far the most accurate and unexceptionable standard of comparison. I now proceed to detail a few facts which have come under my own notice, and to inquire how far the weight of the lungs and their weight as compared with that of the body corresponds with the general statements of authors, and with the numbers contain- ed in the tables. Obs. 1. Female at full term, still-born. AVeight of lungs, right lung, 356 grains ; left lung, 276 grains ; both lungs, 632 grains. • Some corrections have been made in this tabic.