'Good God! your child has got a clap.' (A laugh.) A mistake of this kind, gentlemen, is no laughing matter; and, though I am glad to make you smile sometimes, and like to join in your smiles, I cannot do it on the present occasion, for it is too serious a matter. I can assure you a multitude of persons have been hanged by such a mistake. I will tell you exactly what takes place in such cases; the mother goes home, and says to the child, 'Who is it that has been playing with you? who has taken you on his knee lately? The child innocently replies, 'No one, mother; nobody has, I declare to you.' The mother then says, 'Oh, don't tell me such stories; I will flog you, if you do.' And thus the child is driven to confess what never happened, in order to save herself from being chastised: at last she says, Such a one has taken me on his lap.' The person is questioned, and firmly denies it; but the child, owing to the mother's threats, persists in what she has said. The man is brought into a court of justice; a surgeon, who is ignorant of the nature of the discharge I am now speaking about, gives his evidence; and the man suffers for that which he never committed. The mother is persuaded, if there be a slight ulceration on the parts, that violence has been used, and a rape committed: she immediately says, 'What a horrid villain must he be for forcing a child to such an unnatural crime, and communicating to her such a horrible disease! I should be glad to see him hanged.'

"If I were to tell you how often I have met with such cases, I should say that I have met with thirty in the course of my life. The last case I saw was in the city: a gentleman came to me, and asked me to see a child with him, who had a gonorrhoea on her. I went, and found that she had a free discharge from the preputium clitoridis. I said that there was nothing so common as this. There was considerable inflammation, and it had even proceeded to ulceration, which I told him would soon give way to the use of the liquor calcis with calomel. Do you tell me so? (he replied) why, suspicion has fallen on one of the servants; but he will not confess. If he had appeared at the Old Bailey, I should have given my evidence against him; for I was not aware of what you have just told me.' I told him that, if the man had

been hanged by his evidence, he would have deserved to be hanged too.

"I am anxious that this complaint should be known by every one present, and that the remarks which I have made should be circulated throughout the kingdom. When a child has this discharge, there is a heat of the parts, slight inflammation, and this sometimes increases, and goes on to ulceration. This disease sometimes occurs in children at the time of cutting their teeth."-Lectures on Surgery.

Dr. Dewees, the eminent professor of midwifery, in the University of Philadelphia, has also given an excellent account of the morbid discharge under notice, in his Treatise on the Physical and Medical Treatment of Children, pp. 326, 435. He says, "We occasionally find that very young children have a discharge from within the labia of a thin acrid kind, or of a purulent appearance. When this occurs in very young subjects, it almost always proceeds from a neglect of cleanly attention to these parts, either by withholding a frequent use of lukewarm water, or permitting the child to remain too long wet. . . . . Children, however, of a more advanced age, have also discharges of a purulent character, that seem to arise from a morbid action of the mucous membrane of the vagina or labia. This frequently shews itself about the fifth year, and may continue, if neglected, to almost any period. Parents, therefore, cannot be too much on the alert when this discharge is discovered on their children; nor too early in the application of suitable remedies for its removal. It is in a great measure owing to this neglect, that fluor albus, or whites, become so common, and of such difficult management in adult age. If not interrupted in the beginning of its career, it is apt to continue until the period of puberty, over the phenomena of which it but too often creates an unfriendly influence."

Orfila gives a table to enable medical jurists to discriminate in all cases of stains on linen, whether by spermatic, leucorrhoeal, gonorrhoeal, lochial, mucous and salival fluids. The evidence afforded by this table is far from being positive, and I therefore omit it.

Third question.-Can a woman be violated without her knowledge? Decidedly she can, if under the influence of

insensibility from violence, fainting, asphyxia, narcotics, or intoxication. I have recorded a case in which a female was impregnated during inebriation, and was of course unconscious of it during the first seven months of utero-gestation. She felt much offended, when I hinted my suspicions as to her being pregnant, but soon afterwards her paramour revealed the secret to me. Though it is difficult to suppose a woman can be violated during sleep, yet under some circumstances it seems to me very possible. A married woman who has had children, whose sexual organs are dilated, may be violated during sleep; and a virgin can be deflowered without her being awoke. Drs. Beck, Gordon Smith, Bartley, Foderè, and Capuron, doubt the possibility of a married woman being violated during sleep.*

Fourth question.-Can violation be followed by conception? It has been long decided in the negative, as it was supposed that women who were influenced by the depressing passions could not conceive (Bartley and Farr); Capuron, Foderè, Beck, Good, &c. agree with the majority of the profession, that conception may happen, and is not accelerated or prevented by the volition of the sexes. This is the received and only rational opinion. How many women anxiously wish for children and have none, and vice versâ. Women have conceived during asphyxia, inebriation, and narcotism. From the foregoing observations, it is evident that medical science does not furnish positive proof of any of the questions discussed in this article, but merely probable and presumptive evidence. I may observe in conclusion, that the probabilities are greatest when a child of five, seven, nine, or ten, is the accuser, after due consideration of the sexual diseases of this period of life. Her age excludes all appearance of consent, as she cannot have desire, her organs being undeveloped, as stated in the section on disqualifications for marriage, nor is it likely any foreign body will be introduced. The case will be stronger attested by any other marks of violence. Great caution is, however, required in these cases, as depraved mothers have

* The cases mentioned by Dr. Gooch and Dr. Casack, already quoted, prove the possibility of defloration of virgins during sleep. See p. 245.

Y

induced their children to make accusations against innocent persons.

In arriving at a conclusion in charges of rape, the following inquiries are necessary:

1. The time, place, and all circumstances connected with the assault, should be noted and carefully considered.

2. The age, strength of the body, state of health, of mind, and the general characters of the accuser and accused, are to be duly estimated.

3. The education, station in life, and previous intimacy of the parties, are to be recorded.

4. All marks of violence, or disease, are to be taken into consideration.

5. The organs of both parties are to be examined, and their proportions compared.

The only other medico-legal question connected with morals is sodomy. In these horrible cases it is said, there will be inflammation, excoriation, or syphilitic ulceration, dilatation of the sphincter, scirrhus of the rectum, hæmorrhoids. It is to be recollected that syphilitic excrescences are often seen on the perineum and about the anus, caused by disease from the genitals, where no suspicion can be entertained: "no man," says Dr. Beck, "ought to be condemned on medical proofs solely." The physician should only deliver his opinion in favour or against an accusation already preferred.—Zacchias. The law on this subject has been already stated, and a most extraordinary case described. See p. 230.

CHAPTER VII.

MEDICO-LEGAL QUESTIONS RELATING TO ATTEMPTS AGAINST HEALTH OR LIFE. HOMICIDE BY CONTUSIONS AND

WOUNDS.

UNDER this head we have to consider, 1. contusions, wounds, and homicide by them; 2, homicide by asphyxia, strangulation, suffocation, submersion or drowning, asphyxia by nonrespirable gases, or by deleterious gases; 3, homicide by poisoning.

Of homicide by contusions and wounds.-In a former section, I stated the law on this subject, and need only remind the reader, that by Lord Lansdowne's Act, 9 Geo. IV. c. 31, contusions are classed with wounds; and under this statute we have to comprehend ecchymosis, concussion or loss of power of organs, distortions, dislocations, fractures, burns, wounds of fire-arms, and wounds in general.

Contusion is an injury, and sometimes a wound, inflicted by a hard, blunt instrument, without loss of substance, or wound of the skin, but with laceration of the cellular tissue and extravasation of blood, either diffused or congested on the skin or in the cellular tissue: if the skin be divided, it is designated a contused wound.

Ecchymosis, or blackness, is an extravasation of blood by the rupture of the capillary vessels; and hence it follows contusion, but it may exist as in cases of purpura hæmorrhagica, scurvy, and other morbid conditions without the latter; and we occasionally see persons arise from sleep with numerous ecchymoses, which are sugillations, and called by the vulgar, "dead men's pinches."

When ecchymosis is caused by injury, it generally appears in a short time, or in a few hours, but sometimes not before the lapse of days. The part appears red and bluish, then black or leaden colour, next violet and yellow, and is marked most in