C. The character of the spot in which the body was found will often afford presumptive evidence of considerable weight, but in availing ourselves of its indications, we must cautiously avoid the fallacies to which it may give origin; to some of which we shall have occasion to refer at a future period of the investigation. We next proceed to the consideration of the several problems involved in the second division of our inquiry, viz.
II. Whether, supposing the child to have been born alive, its death was the result of natural causes, of wilful violence, or of negligence and abandonment?
If sufficient proof should have been obtained that the child was born alive, we have to inquire into the causes of its death; upon which the anatomical dissection will have thrown some light, and in a great measure, prepared our decision. Medical writers on the subject of infanticide have very judiciously considered the modes of violent death in new-born children, as divisible into two great classes, viz. those of omission, and those of commission. It will be convenient for us, on the present occasion, to arrange our remarks with reference to such a division.
Death by omission.—For want of due care the child may perish during, or immediately subsequent to, the labour. It may die from suffocation caused by the viscid mucus naturally existing about the pharynx and glottis in newly-born infants getting into the trachea, especially if the infant has lain on its back for some time after its delivery; or suffocation may be occasioned by the discharge of blood from the mother, or by the wet linen over it, collapsing and excluding the air, or by being drawn close to its mouth and nose by the suction of breathing. Children are, moreover, often born with a portion of the membranes over the face, which, if not removed, must impede respiration. In some cases strangulation is produced by the umbilical cord; the livid circle therefore round the neck, which without due consideration, might seem to afford a proof of criminal violence, is to be regarded with reference to the probability of such an occurrence; it is possible, adds Dr. Hutchinson, that the navel-string may be twisted round the neck of the infant, but loosely, until the body is nearly expelled; and then, if the placenta be firmly retained in the uterus, it may become tightened, and cause suffocation. These circumstances may happen when there is no person about the woman to render her proper assistance; and, therefore, careful examination is necessary, in order to ascertain, if, with the livid circle round the neck, there are marks of nails, or points of fingers, or excoriation of the skin. The breadth of the mark, also, and whether or not it makes a complete circle, with the ends exactly meeting, and without deviating from this circle, should be carefully noticed; the latter circumstances conjoined cannot arise from a natural twisting of the navel string. The livid part should be carefully dissected, in order to ascertain if there are ruptured blood-vessels corresponding to it, whether the trachea or larynx be flattened, or their cartilaginous rings laterally compressed; for it is asserted that such injuries never can occur from the natural twisting of the navel string. The practitioner will be enabled by the foregoing remarks to appreciate the value of that indication, upon which the vulgar have ever laid much stress,—the swollen and red appearance of the countenance. Dr. Hunter has made the following judicious observation upon the phenomenon: “when the child’s head or face looks swollen, and very red or black, the vulgar, because hanged people look so, are apt to conclude that it must have been strangled. But those who are in the practice of midwifery know that nothing is more common in natural births; and that the swelling and deep colour disappear gradually, if the child lives but a few days. This appearance is particularly observable in those cases where the navel-string happens to gird the child’s neck, and where its head happens to be born some time before its body.”
A woman suffering labour alone may have the fœtus escape from her, and fall to the ground, on its head, and be thus killed; or she may unexpectedly be seized with pains in situations at once destructive to the child. In the case of infants being found in privies, this circumstance ought not to escape our remembrance. A woman was tried at the Old Bailey for the murder of her child, by dropping it into a privy. She declared that while there for a natural purpose, an uncommon pain took her, the child fell, and she sat some time before she was able to stir. On this occasion, we learn from Dr. Gordon Smith, that a practitioner was examined on the possibility of such an event; who stated that an instance came within his own knowledge, where, while the midwife was playing at cards in the room, the woman was taken suddenly, and the child dropped on the floor. To this the author just cited adds another illustrative case. It recently happened, says he, in the circle of my own acquaintance, that a lady who had borne many children, and must therefore have been alive to the import of uneasiness in the last hours of pregnancy, was sitting in company at dinner, and perfectly free from any consciousness of approaching labour, when she experienced an irresistible impulse to repair to the water-closet. She had scarcely arrived there when she was delivered: now had the place of retirement been differently constructed, this infant might have perished. It will very properly be urged that a woman, on finding what has happened, ought, if her feelings and intentions were honest, to give immediate alarm. This is true, but says Dr. Smith, we must admit, in the first place, the possibility of her not being able to do so, in consequence of the effects of the occurrence on her own person; and, in the next place, it is but just to allow that, although an alarm, after she has fully recovered, might secure her in the case of trial, yet as it can be of no use in restoring the life of the child, the idea of concealment will more naturally arise.
A very remarkable case, in illustration of the subject under discussion, is related by Burnett, in his Treatise on the Criminal Law of Scotland. “It occurred at Aberdeen in September 1804. The girl had become pregnant in circumstances peculiarly disastrous; actuated by the strongest impulse of shame and remorse, she concealed her situation from every one, and ascribed her appearance to cold she had caught. On the day of her delivery she had been to market, and in returning home accidentally slipt her foot, and fell into a mill-pond, where she would have been drowned had she not obtained immediate assistance. She was carried all wet into an adjoining malt-kiln, where there was a large fire, and left under the charge of another woman. The latter having gone out for a very short time, leaving the girl sitting by the fire, found on her return that she had been delivered of a child. The infant was in life, and lying at the extremity of the ashes near the fire. The girl said that her pains came on unexpectedly while sitting by the fire, and that she became insensible and could give no assistance to her child. No violence appeared on the body of the child, but it appeared to have been scorched by the fire, which occasioned its death a few hours thereafter. The prosecutor consented to a petition for banishment.”
The next circumstance which deserves notice under the consideration of the causes of death, by omission, is that of neglecting to divide the navel-string, and to apply a ligature to the infantine portion of it.—With regard to the value of the presumptive proof of criminal intention which such neglect may offer, there are several very weighty objections, and which have been enumerated by Dr. Hutchinson, in the following order. 1. The infant may perish during its birth from hemorrhage from the placenta, or rupture of the navel string, and the mother may, or may not, have divided the latter. 2. The child may have lived after its birth, and the mother may have torn or cut asunder the navel-string, and finding no hemorrhage ensue she has not been led to put a ligature on the infantine portion, and afterwards hemorrhage has taken place from it, from which the infant has died. 3. The mother may discover the hemorrhage in the last mentioned case, and may apply a ligature to the navel string, but too late to preserve the infant’s life. 4. The blood of the mother may be artfully placed about the child, and the navel string left untied; and the mother may wish to have it appear that the infant perished from hemorrhage occurring unknown to her, and that she was not aware of the necessity of tying the navel-string, even though it be found that she had cut it, not torn it asunder with her hands. In the first three cases we shall find, on dissection, evidence of extensive hemorrhage, as indicated by the emptiness of the heart and blood-vessels, paleness of the viscera, &c. In the last case, the proper fulness of the arterial and venous systems will betray the imposture. It is impossible, as Dr. Hutchinson very candidly admits, to trace any rules of general application respecting the first three cases. The decision must be partially founded on various collateral moral circumstances, which come especially within the province of the jury.
A new-born child may perish from exposure to cold. This cause of death will be indicated by the character of the place and circumstances under which its body was found. The appearance of the corpse, upon such an occasion, will also assist our judgment; there will generally be a paleness of the skin, and a vacuity in the superficial vessels. It may perish for want of nourishment. But let it be remembered that new-born children are seldom, or never, famished to death, within a few days of their birth; for they require very little nourishment, and it was formerly the custom to keep them some days from the breast; such an omission, however, if suspected, may be ascertained by examining the stomach, and, at the same time, by deducing from the appearance of the umbilicus,[[85]] the probable period that has elapsed since its birth.
Death by commission.—We have already pointed out the various means by which the death of the newly-born infant is usually accomplished; such as by wounding, suffocating, strangling, poisoning, &c.; and in the course of our work we have so fully considered the phenomena of violent death, that it cannot be necessary, on the present occasion, to expend farther time on their discussion.
The last object of the inquiry, viz. the appearance and condition of the woman’s person, has been also considered under the history of parturition, and the various questions to which it has given origin, vol. i, p. 249.