The question as to how long a body may remain in the water before it floats has given rise to considerable discussion, without, however, arriving at any very definite conclusion. It may be stated in general terms that, as floating depends to some extent on the rapidity in which putrefaction supervenes on submersion, bodies float earlier in summer than in winter, in salt than fresh water, clothed than naked. In India bodies have floated in twenty-four hours after immersion. Females and children float more readily than males. A body from various causes may float within a few hours of its submersion, especially if the body be that of a female, fat and clothed. The old idea that the body of a person thrown into water during life sinks, but that a dead body under like conditions floats, is a fiction now exploded.
Suicide or Homicide?—Homicide by drowning is rare, except in children. Accidental and suicidal drowning are common enough.
The signs to be sought for in the drowned are—(1) Absence of any injury. (2) Cutis anserina and retracted penis. (3) Water and mud in the stomach. (4) Froth in the air-passages. (5) Distended lungs. (6) General signs of death by asphyxia.
It should be remembered that the fact of the hands being tied together, or to the feet, does not militate against suicide by drowning.
If wounds and other injuries be found on the body, the question arises as to whether the injuries were sufficient in themselves to cause death, and then as to whether they were caused during life. A person jumping from a height into the water may sustain severe injuries—dislocation of both arms, fracture of the skull and of the vertebræ, or even lacerated wounds of more or less severity. The absence of the signs proper to death by drowning, coupled with the presence of external injuries, would point to death by violence prior to immersion. The presence of signs of drowning, and injuries, sufficient to have caused death in themselves, would indicate that they had occurred after death.
The following considerations may assist in forming an opinion:
- 1. Previous history of person found in the water.
- (a) Any history of suicidal tendency.
- (b) Any motive that would render suicide probable.
- 2. Height from which the person fell.
- 3. Absence or presence of signs of death by drowning.
- 4. Absence of stakes or other objects in the water that might
- have caused injuries to anyone falling against them.
The time required to cause death by drowning is so short that persons seldom recover after submersion for three or four minutes; but the cessation of respiration is no guide to the extinction of life, and an attempt at resuscitation should always be made, for if the respiration be fairly restored the heart will soon act. Nay more, as pointed out before, in cases of so-called asphyxia, the heart may continue to act for several minutes after the entrance of air to the lungs has been arrested, and in judicial hanging it frequently happens that the pulse at the wrist can be felt for ten or twelve minutes after suspension. (See [Figs. 16], [17], [18].)