A manual of medical jurisprudence / by Alfred Swaine Taylor.

  • Taylor, Alfred Swaine, 1806-1880.
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of medical jurisprudence / by Alfred Swaine 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.

    22/872 (page 10)
    lO PRESERVATION OF ARTICLES FOR ANALYSIS. Not only must clean vessels be used for receiving any article des- tined for subsequent analysis, but care must be taken that the identity of a substance is preserved, or the most correct analysis, afterwards made, will be inadmissible as evidence. The suspected substance, when once placed in the hands of a medical man, should never be let out of his sight or custody. It should be kept sealed under his private seal, and locked up, while in his possession, in a closet to which no other person has a key. If he has once let the article out of his hands, and allowed it to pass through the hands of several other persons, then he complicates the evidence for the prosecution, by rendering it indispensable for these persons to state under what circum- stances it was placed while in their possession. The exposure of a suspected substance on a table or in a closet or room to which many have access, may be fatal to its identity; for the chemical evidence, so important in a criminal investigation, will probably be altogether rejected by the court. When any article {e.g. a stomach) is reserved for analysis, care should be taken to at once attach immovably to it, or to the vessel containing it, a label, upon which is plainly written the. name of the deceased and the date of removal. This is especially necessary when there are two or more articles for analysis. The greatest inconvenience has resulted from the neglect of this simple precaution. Presermig articles for Analysis.—In removing viscera or liquids from the body and reserving them for analysis, it is necessary to observe certain precautions. A clean vessel with a wide mouth should be selected; it should be only sufficiently large to hold the organ or liquid (the less air remaining in it the better); and it should be secured by a closely fitting cork, covered with gutta-percha tissue or bladder. Another piece of sheet caoutchouc or gutta-percha should then be tied over the mouth. In this way any loss by evaporation or decomposition is prevented, and the viscera may be preserved in a cool place for some time. If the mouth of the vessel be .too wide for a cork, the other articles cannot be dispensed with. Paper only should not be used, as the appearances after death in the viscera may be entirely destroyed by the evaporation which takes place through the layers of paper with which the vessel containing them is covered. The prac- titioner should bear in mind that all these matters are likely to come out in evidence. For reasons already stated, antiseptic chemical com- pounds should not be used. The articles used for the preservation of viscera should be in all cases scrupulously examined. Some kinds of calico are dressed with arsenic and starch paste, and many kinds of wrapping-paper as well as wall-papers are strongly impregnated with this poison. One observa- tion shows that this is not an unnecessary caution. A medical man was engaged in examining the body of a child, in order to determine the cause of death. The organs were healthy, and as no sutlicient cause presented itself, he removed the stomach with a view of making an analj^sis of its contents. He was suddenly called away; and, to preserve the stomach, he wrapped it iu a piece of paper (used for