Case 20. Blisters. Was the Scalding Ante Mortem? (Taylor, “Med. Jurisprudence,” 8th Am. Ed., p. 411).—The body of an infant found in a saucepan, boiled. The prisoner admitted that the child had breathed. The boiling water had destroyed the means of positively deciding whether the child had breathed. Blisters found upon it contained yellow serum. Was the child living when put in the water? The prisoner was acquitted.
Case 21. Scald of a Lunatic in a Bath (Taylor, “Med. Jurisprudence,” 8th Am. Ed., p. 411).—Insane patient placed in a hot bath. Temperature 123° F. Death in collapse next day (1879).
Case 22. Criminal Burning, Strangling (Report of Profs. Liebig and Bischoff, of Giessen, March, 1850).—The man Stauff was tried at Darmstadt for the murder of the Countess of Goerlitz, whom he had attacked and murdered in her chamber, and then fired the furniture in order to conceal the crime. It was uncertain whether she had died from injury to the head or from strangulation. The tongue protruded and was swollen, as in cases of strangling, and maintained this condition. He was convicted chiefly on circumstantial evidence. After conviction he confessed that he had strangled her and then set fire to the furniture, which he had piled up about her.
Case 23. Murder. Body Burned. Identified (“Report of the Trial of Prof. Webster,” etc., Boston, 1850).—Prof. Webster killed Dr. Parkman and then burned the body, in portions, in a furnace in his laboratory. Search among the cinders of the furnace disclosed pieces of human bones and a set of false teeth which the dentist who made them recognized as made by him for Dr. Parkman, etc.
Case 24. Murder. Body Entirely Burned. Identified (the “Druse Case,” Trans. New York State Med. Soc., 1887, p. 417).—Mrs. Druse, with the compulsory aid of her children, killed her husband with an axe. The body was burned in a wood stove, with pine shingles. The ashes were thrown into a swamp near by. They were found and carefully sifted. Pieces of bone of various sizes, identified as human, were found, as also a few porcelain buttons, etc. A few hairs found, with stains, completed the identity. Experiments in this case showed that the body could have been consumed within ten hours. The prisoner was convicted of murder.
THE MEDICO-LEGAL RELATIONS
OF
ELECTRICITY.