A manual of medical jurisprudence for India : including the outline of a history of crime against the person in India / by Norman Chevers.

  • Chevers, Norman, 1818-1886.
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of medical jurisprudence for India : including the outline of a history of crime against the person in India / by Norman Chevers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    believed that (he child had not been killed by a kick, and that the story of the sudden blow had been trumped up to turn aside the legal inquiries regarding the cause of her violent death.* Many cases will be found in the criminal records—especially in those of the North-West Provinces, in which death was caused by forcing cloths, earth, &c, into the mouth. In some instances, at least, this would appear to be done with an intention to stifle the victim's cries;— still, where death results from so cruel and reckless a form of violence, it is doubtful whether this plea should be held as mitigatory. One Ramchurn, of Goruckpore, was found guilty of rape upon a girl of eight. The child, who appeared to understand the obligation of an oath, declared that the prisoner threw her down, and filled her mouth with sand.f A boy, apparently only twelve years of age, but shrewd and intelligent beyond his years, was convicted of having robbed a child of four of her ornaments, after having filled her mouth with mud, and nearly strangled her. The child was found in a field, with her mouth filled with earth, and with the marks of fingers on her neck. She afterwards said that the prisoner had thus maltreated her.} A very young man of Mirzapore was sentenced to death for murdering a boy of twelve for his ornaments, by filling his mouth with mud. The Civil Surgeon deposed that the cause of death was, in his opinion, suffo- cation and consequent congestion of the brain, produced by the mouth and air-passages of the deceased having been filled with mud, whilst he was alive.§ A lad from thirteen to fifteen years of ago was sentenced, at Agra, to transportation for life for having robbed a girl of four, his near relative, of her ornaments, after having filled her mouth with bhoosa. The Civil Surgeon deposed that death had been caused by suffocation, consequent upon the mouth of the deceased being filled with bhoosa.\\ One Bhageeruttee, of Goruckpore, was sentenced to death for the mur- der of a boy of nine for his ornaments. He confessed before the Deputy Magistrate that he put a cloth in the child's mouth, and, seizing his throat, had choked him.^f An old woman of Tirhoot, finding a little girl of six digging up some grain from her field, felled the child with a heavy clod, and then suffo- cated her by pressing her clothes against her mouth, until she ceased to * Nizamut Adawlut Reports, N. W. P., 23rd November L854, p. 743. t Ibid, 20fch October 1853, p. 1318. t Ibid, 2lih May 1853, p. 697. § Bid, 15th September 1852, p. 990. || Ibid, 23rd January L852,p. 51. 1] Ibid, I lih February 1853. p, 208.