Pathological researches on death from suffocation and from syncope, and on vital and post-mortem burning : suggested by the case of the alleged Bridgnorth matricide / by Samuel Wright.

Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pathological researches on death from suffocation and from syncope, and on vital and post-mortem burning : suggested by the case of the alleged Bridgnorth matricide / by Samuel Wright. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    but notwithstanding this precaution, the loss of blood, from the surface vessels, has been considei-able. Yet in the face of these difficulties and disadvantages, I have produced the blisters referred to, several times, in from half a minute to four minutes and a half, after amputation. Beyond this period, the vesications have been simply gaseous, and have answered to the descriptions previously given of them. On the same limb, I have had two distinct and well-contrasted specimens of each of these forms of blistering—the results of flame applied at different intervals. In experimenting upon a dead body, the difficulty is, as before observed, to meet with one favourable to the objects of the investigation. This is the more to be regretted, because in the cases of suspicious death to which such experi- ments only could apply, the deceased might have died a violent death, and would most likely have been burnt immediately afterwards. The opportunities of voluntary practical inquiry, of coui'se give us no parallels to this, for whatever investigations we can make, are for the most part upon bodies that have died from some form of disease, and to apply flame to any part of them within a quarter of an hour after dissolution, is next to impossible. At least my own experience, now somewhat ample upon this subject, teUs me so. This is, there- fore, a reason why results, apparently trifling, should be estimated both accord- ing to their absolute and their comparative weight. As I have before said, the production of a post-mortem serous blister, is sim- ply a measurement of the amount of organic life remaining in a body otherwse dead. Where this remnant physiological condition most abounds, the facilities for serous blistering are the greatest. It continues longer, and more largely, after suffocation, than after any other form of violent death. Oases such as these, however, adapted though they are to the purposes of experiment, are seldom met with until after the subject has become cold. Feeling this difficulty, and desiring to avoid it, I applied to the Secretary of State for permission to try some experi- ments upon the body of Manning, but was informed by Sir George Grey, that to grant such a request would not consist with the duties of his office. I shall still not lose sight of the inquiry, or of any future occasions of its illustration. The only really favourable opportunity I have had for producing, post-mor- tem, a serous blister, was in the person of a female, thirty years of age, who died