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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    test, (see Table XXXIII), as strong a presumption against it; in the third case, there would lieve been a slight presumption in favour of still-birth ; and in the child who survived its birth two days, a still stronger presumption on the same side. Thus out of the seven cases, the static lung tests would have given correct in- dications in two, they would have left two others doubtful, and would have led to erroneous conclusions in the remaining three. These remarks apply to the average weight of the lungs, and the average proportion which the lungs bear to the body when used as tests of respiration ; but if the highest and lowest weights and proportions had been employed as standards of comparison, the question whether the child had or had not breathed would have re- mained unanswered. Now it admits of great doubt whether it is allowable to employ an average value as a standard of comparison in medico-legal inquiries. Even in the practice of medicine, where many low probabilities are allowed to assist us in our diagnosis, average values are amongst the least useful and the least trusted of our standards of comparison, and very few physicians would be 1 hardy enough to rest any important conclusions upon so insecure I a basis. What medical man, for instance, w'ould think of placing 1 much reliance on an average frequency of the pulse, or the ave- 1 rage proportion of the pulse and respiration as a standard of com- 1 parison in a case of disease? They would furnish a low presump- ; tion, and nothing more. On the other hand, a comparison be- . tween the frequency of the pulse in a given case of disease, and the Li highest or lowest ascertained frequency in a state of health, would .1 furnish important indications on which he would be justified in lay- \ ing great stress. A mode of reasoning which would be inad- [ 1 missible in a case of disease where a low probability derived from one symptom is confirmed by the presence or absence of a consi- , derable number of other signs, can scarcely be trusted to in medico- '' legal inquiries, which demand a much higher accuracy, and a I much stricter logic. If in a court of law, a medical witness were to state that, in a certain case, he had found a certain weight of lungs, and a certain proportion between the w^eight of the lungs and that of the body, and that he regarded this as a proof of respi- ration or of still-birth, or even as a presumption in favour of one or the other, he would be immediately met by the question—has not precisely the same weight of lung, or the same proportion, been met with in cases where the exact reverse of your inference was known to have existed ? To this question an answ^er must be given in the affirmative, except in those instances in which the weight exceeded the highest recorded weight or proportion, or fell short of the lowest; and these cases have been shown to be ex- tremely few in number. But even when the extremes are employ- ed as our standard of comparison, our inference in individual cases