IX.—ASSAULT, MURDER, MANSLAUGHTER, ETC.
Assault.—This is an attempt or offer to do violence to another person; it is not necessary that actual injury has been done, but evil intention must be proved. When a corporal hurt has been sustained, then assault and battery has been committed. The assault may be aggravated by the use of weapons, etc.
Homicide may be justifiable, as in the case of judicial execution, or excusable, as in defence of one's family or property.
Felonious homicide is murder. This means that a human being has been killed by another maliciously and deliberately or with reckless disregard of consequences.
Manslaughter or Culpable Homicide (Scotland) is the unlawful killing of a human being without malice—as homicide after great provocation; signalman who allows a train to pass, and so collide with another in front.
X.—WOUNDS AND MECHANICAL INJURIES
A wound may be defined as a 'breach of continuity in the structures of the body, whether external or internal, suddenly occasioned by mechanical violence.' The law does not define 'a wound,' but the true skin must be broken. Wounds are dangerous from shock, hæmorrhage, from the supervention of crysipelas or pyæmia, and from malum regimen on the part of the patient or surgeon. Is the wound dangerous to life? This question can only be answered by a full consideration of all the circumstances of the case; a guarded prognosis is wise in all cases.
Burns are caused by flames, highly heated solids, or very cold solids, as solid carbonic acid; scalds, by steam or hot fluids. Burns may cause death from shock, suffocation, œdema glottidis, inflammation of serous surfaces, bronchitis, pneumonia, duodenal ulcer, coma, or exhaustion. A burn of the skin inflicted during life is followed by a bleb containing serum; the edges of this blister are bright red, and the base, seen after removing the cuticle, is red and inflamed; if sustained after death, a bleb, if present, contains but little fluid, and there are no signs of vital reaction. There are six degrees of burns: (1) Superficial inflammation; (2) formation of vesicles; (3) destruction of superficial layer of skin; (4) destruction of cellular tissue; (5) deep parts charred; (6) carbonization of bones.