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.

    709/872 (page 697)
    (' Med. Jurispr. for India,' p. 468.) When it is alleged that injuries have been intentionally produced on the genitals of a child by- mechanical means, with a view of extorting money in laying a false charge of rape, the medical evidence can do no more than show that a girl with such appearances about her sexual organs has suffered from some violence applied to the parts, but whether by the human member, or any other physical means, it would be impossible to say. In 1840, Brady communicated a case of alleged rape on a female infant only eleven months old, in which the violence done to the genitals proved fatal. In 1858, a girl seven years old was brought into Guy's Hospital, owing to injuries resulting from a perpetration of rape by a boy under seventeen years of age, about half an hour after the occurrence. There was a complete destruction of the hymen, with a laceration of about one-eighth of an inch extending into the perinseum. There had been profuse bleeding. There was then no complaint of pain, and there were no scratches or marks of violence on any part of the body. There was no discharge of a purulent kind. The child was of a scrofulous habit; but she was not suffering from vaginitis, and appeared in other respects per- fectly healthy. Forty-eight hours after the occurrence the bleeding had ceased, and the extent of the lacerations was very perceptible. There was no discharge of any kind from the vagina, and no inflamed or swollen condition of the parts. The boy was examined about an hour after the perpetration of the rape, and, although he had been under strict custody, and had had no opportunity of changing his clothes, there was no Mood found about his private parts or on his clothing. It is probable, as the boy was interrupted in the act by •the screaming of the girl, that he suddenly withdrew after having caused the laceration, and that the bleeding was an after effect of oozing from the ruptured vessels. This is an important fact, because, had not the circumstances been known, the absence of blood on his person might have been construed into a strong proof of innocence. Sawyer met with a case in which a rape was committed on a girl, aet. 5. There was a bruised and swollen state of the genitals; the hymen was not ruptured, and there was no laceration of parts. In spite of this, a large amount of blood had been lost. This bleeding, in his opinion, took place from the hymen, which was in a highly congested state. The man who had perpetrated the crime was examined soon afterwards, but no appearance of blood was found on his organs; there were a few stains only on the front of his clothing. ('New Orleans Med. Gaz.,' 1858, p. 283.) A case occurred to Sells, in 1863, in which he found, on the person of a girl said to have been violated, laceration of the hymen, a clot of blood recently effused lying on the vulva, and the thighs of the child smeared with blood, quite fresh; there was also blood on the sheets of the child's bed. The next morning he examined the accused, but he could find no trace of blood upon him or on the clothing which he wore at the time of the alleged assault. In this case, as there was a failure of identity, the accused was discharged.