In the matter of sex there should be no difficulty, after noting the proof furnished by the aggregate characteristics of both male and female skeletons. The points of contrast between the two skeletons are not so striking before the age of puberty. Generally speaking the cranial capacity of an adult woman is less, although it is contended that since the great majority of males of the human species are taller, heavier, and larger than the females, it follows that if due allowance be made for these variations, it will appear that the brain capacity of woman is relatively very little, if at all, inferior to that of man. The mastoid processes of the female skull are smaller; the lower jaw-bone is relatively smaller and lighter; the ribs are lighter and compressed; the spine is relatively longer; the collar and shoulder bones and the sternum[577] are smaller and lighter; there is a less pronounced angle in the femur, the neck of which approaches a right angle, while smallness of the patella in front and narrowness of the articulating surfaces of the tibia and femur, which in man form the lateral prominences, are said to make the knee-joint in women a sexual characteristic. But it is the striking contrast in the pelvis that furnishes a sexual significance that is of greater value than all the rest of the skeleton together. From a glance at the text-book account of the pelvis, it does not appear that much anatomical knowledge is necessary to identify the important points that give shape to the female pelvis. Its greater diameter (except the vertical), larger and more curved sacrum and coccyx, and great spread of the arch of the pubes are well-nigh incontestible signs. The differences as detailed in the books can be objected to only on the possibility of a so-called hermaphrodite pelvis in one of the other sex. We sometimes see a very large pelvis in a subject who by a teratological freak became a man. Masculine characteristics are, however, oftener found in women than feminine characteristics in men; hence the conclusion that the presence of feminine characteristics leaves but little doubt as to the sex, but that certain masculine indications, while giving a great probability for the male sex, are not absolutely decisive. (See Hermaphroditism.)
The finding of fœtal bones around or about the supposed female skeleton is suggestive. It could not be inferred from this fact alone that the woman was or was not pregnant at the time of death, since the absence of fœtal remains on the one hand might imply their entire decomposition in advance of those of the adult; on the other hand, the indiscriminate habit of undertakers, who often bury still-borns with adults, may account for their presence.
Accidental Signs and Evolution of the Teeth.
The trade or occupation leaves but few marks on the bones that are useful in the matter of identification. It is in the recent and well-preserved cadaver, or, better still, in the living subject, that the professional signs are of importance. As a rule, the relatively larger scapulæ point to the fact of a day-laborer; necrosis of the lower jaw suggests a worker in phosphorus; worn and discolored teeth a user of tobacco, and aurification of the teeth might suggest the previous social condition. Gold crowns and fillings and dental prosthesis generally are among the most common and, at the same time, among the most useful signs of identification. By this means the bones of persons killed by Indians on the Western plains have been recognized years afterward. The traveller Powell, massacred in Abyssinia, was recognized in this way. From the presence of artificial teeth and the mechanical appliances for fixing them, dentists may recognize their own work beyond a doubt. One of the most common-hackneyed of these cases is that of Professor Webster.[578] Later cases, in which this kind of proof established convincing and conclusive identification, are those of Dr. Cronin, assassinated in Chicago in 1889, and of the bomb-thrower, Norcross. Every now and then accounts appear in the daily press of corpses having been recognized by inspection of the teeth. In Washington, only a short time since, the remains of an unknown man were exhumed from the Potter’s Field for judicial reasons. The unrecognized body had been found in the Potomac in an advanced stage of decomposition. From the signs furnished by the teeth the remains were identified as those of a person who had disappeared mysteriously and under circumstances that pointed to his having been murdered at a Virginian gambling den, and his body thrown into the river. In connection with this subject the Goss-Udderzook tragedy is of instructive interest.
In every important case a cast of the mouth should be taken, in order to set at rest any question that may subsequently arise as to the condition of the jaw, the absence of teeth, their irregularity or other dental peculiarities. A cast of the mouth of the deceased in the Hillmon case showed all the teeth to be regular and perfect, while it is alleged that Hillmon’s teeth were just the opposite. External signs furnished by dentition may assist greatly in fixing both age and identity. The evolution of the human dental system has been so well studied from intra-uterine life to old age that we may approximately tell the age, especially of children, from the teeth alone. This sign, so valuable in childhood, loses its value as the dentition progresses. Elaborate tables and dental formulæ to be found elsewhere deal with the two periods of dentition, the relative position and number of the teeth, and the like.
At birth the jaws show points of ossification only; but children are sometimes born with central incisors, as the writer has, in common with others, noted in several instances. The first dentition takes place from the seventh to the thirtieth month; the second between four and five years. In rachitic children these periods are later; but a syphilitic taint may hasten their development. The twenty-eight teeth characterize early youth. Wisdom teeth appear between eighteen and twenty-five, sometimes as late as thirty years. The presence of thirty-two teeth indicates maturity. This number is sometimes exceeded. Dr. Tidy, in his work on “Legal Medicine,” reports having seen several children between six and seven years with forty-eight teeth. Instances are recorded of cutting the teeth at advanced age, seventy and one hundred and eighteen years; of adults who have never had teeth; of supernumerary teeth, and of a third dentition. What purported to be a third dentition came under my notice some years ago, in the person of an old negro “voodoo doctor.” A more recent case, said to have occurred in an old man of seventy-four, at Seymour, Ind., is reported in the Weekly Medical Review, St. Louis, Mo., April 16th, 1892, p. 314.
The pathological signs furnished by the teeth should, of course, be looked upon as a personal characteristic that may lend additional light in the question of identity.
Congenital Peculiarities, Deformities, and Injuries.
But congenital peculiarities or injuries of other parts of the skeleton are studied to greater advantage in determining proof or disproof of identity. We may recognize cranial asymmetry; the peculiar conformation of the idiot skull; the prognathous skull of the negro; the pyramidal skull of some of the yellow races, and the oval head of the white man; besides the ethnic artificial deformities already touched upon in considering the question of race. A metopic cranium, a cleft palate, a deformed spine or pelvis, a larger left scapula—indicative of left-handedness; a shortened extremity; bowed legs, club foot, the presence of extra fingers or toes, and the relative length of the fingers are each and all valuable facts in judiciary anthropology. In women of Spanish extraction the fifth finger is almost as long as the fourth—a fact so well known that glove-makers take advantage of it in sending gloves to Mexico, the Antilles, or to South America.
An estimate of the length of the hand seems to be a matter of difficulty, notwithstanding the extensive observation of high authority. In the majority of cases the ring-finger is longer than the index.