Syllabus of the university course of lectures on medical jurisprudence / by Robert Christison.

Date:
1826
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Syllabus of the university course of lectures on medical jurisprudence / by Robert Christison. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    the foetus undergoes immediately after birth ; changes in the lungs, heart, and great vessels; intestinal contents; umbilical chord. Statutes bn the subject of child murder, and conceal- ment of pregnancy. Early statutes in the various Euro- pean kingdoms; in Britain. Statutes of 1809. Condi- tions necessary for constituting the crimes of child mur- der, and concealment of pregnancy. Questions arising out of these statutes. I. Has the prisoner been recently delivered ? already con- sidered under chapter II. It. Was the child so mature as to render it probable it might have lived? Recapitulation of the physiological inquiry at the head of this chapter. At how early a period is it possible for the foetus to outlive delivery ? controversies on this subject. On account of the parti- cular circumstances attending cases of infanticide, the question of maturity is easily decided in general. Can the prisoner support the defence of immaturity in any other way than by producing the foetus ? III. Was the child found really that of the prisoner ? This question is determined, at least approximatively, by com- paring together the state of the child's body and that of the prisoner. 1. Comparison of the probable duration of the prisoner's pregnancy with the state of maturity of the child. 2. Comparison of the signs which accompany the progressive changes of the female after delivery, with the age of the child when it died, together with the period that has elapsed after death ;—signs of putrefaction in the womb. 3. Comparison of the signs of the kind of labour as judged of by marks on the child on the one hand, and by the structure of the prisoner's organs, or actually as- certained length of her labour. IV. Can the prisoner have been ignorant of her pregnancy and labour till it was too late to call for assistance, or till she was actually delivered?. Conditions requisite. 1. Impreg- nation must have taken place without her knowledge; under what circumstances this is possible; instances in point. 2. Her pregnancy must imitate some natural disease. Is this possible ? Circumstances which render it so ; and