On homicidal and suicidal wounds of the throat / by Alfred S. Taylor.

  • Taylor, Alfred Swaine, 1806-1880.
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On homicidal and suicidal wounds of the throat / 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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    in tlie handkerchief did not in any way correspond to the wound in the prisoner’s throat, and it was not such a cut as would he produced by drawing a knife horizontally across the throat in the attempt to cut it. There was a cut in the collar of the shirt, but no blood upon it either inside or outside. The stockings were stained in the soles with dried and clotted blood, so that they were quite stiff with blood and dirt; the boots had no corresponding marks of blood inside. The blade of the table-knife had blood on both sides, but there was no blood on the handle. The cross-examination was directed to show that the stocking soles might have been made bloody by the prisoner walking on a bloody floor, and that this blood might be rapidly dried by his subsequently walking on a dusty or dry floor. If the boots were put on after a good deal of walking there might only be a trace of blood left inside the boots. In reference to the opinion given by me on the rapidity with which death would be likely to follow from such a wound as that found on the body of deceased, and the loss of power of motion or of making voluntary exertion, the learned couueil read the following extract from the f Principles and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence/ 1865, p. 513, and requested special attention to it. This was the extract which had been read by the learned counsel to Mr. Dove in his cross-examination :— “Wounds of the carotid arteries are often pronounced install- taneously mortal. A witness may deliberately state that the person could not possibly have survived an instant. This is a very hazardous opinion, for it occasionally comes out on in- quiry that if such a wound had been instantaneously mortal, then, in defiance of rational probability or of the strongest presumptive evidence to the contrary, the deceased must have been murdered. A medical opinion of this kind has been not only refuted by circumstances, but by the evidence of eye- witnesses. A medical witness is then compelled to admit that his rules for judging of the mortality of wounds are wrong, and that the person may have survived for a longer or shorter period. There are several cases on record which show that wounds involving the common carotid artery and its branches, as well as the internal jugular vein, do not prevent a person from exercising voluntary power and even running for a certain distance. Mr. Clegg, coroner for Boston, informed me that in