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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    was executed by Jadhoo Kotal alone, aud that the burkundaz had taken no notice of it. Ou the 4th August, after a further lapse of eight days, the burkundaz reported his having heard from Kanto Dullye, prisoner No. 6, that Jutee had died, aud that her body had been thrown into the river, by order of the principal men of the village. All these proceedings were, no doubt, illegal and against expressed injunctions. The darogah should immediately have taken orders from the Magistrate how to proceed, but he made no report whatever until the 6th August. On that day, the darogah arrived at the village of Brindabun Chuck, and found the four prisoners in the custody of the burkundaz. The female prisoner (who kept a stock of drugs for the practice of abortion) admitted having administered medicine to the deceased, and the others to having thrown her body into the river. These wretched people, distressed and thoroughly alarmed by inefficient Police pressure, aud having nearly three weeks allowed them to arrange matters in, were goaded iuto the adoption of that fatal measure which it was the object of the Police enquiry to prevent. Criminal Abortion in Madras. Dr. John Shortt has published two cases, with observations, which throw some light upon the practice of Criminal Abortion as it prevails in the Madras Presidency* He observes:— So long as early marriages and the objection to the re-marriage of widows continue to exist under the toleration of caste, foeticide will coutinue rampant in Southern India. The moral iniquity of this crime is considered unequal to the inflexibility of caste, or to the attendant disgrace thus entailed ou the family. To cloak the failings of erring women, trampled down by caste ties aud prejudices, relatives aud connexions either assist or connive at criminal abortion, which appears to have no place either in their religion or morals. The guilty individual, to avoid the exposure of the birth of a child, and the consequent expulsion from caste, which, in every instance, is rigorously carried out by her own family and friends, is glad to have recourse to any measure that would save her from such consequences. Dr. Shortt remarks upon the use of Plumbago Zeylandica, or chittra moolum, that it is a universal remedy in dysmenorrhea, and equally so as a means of producing abortion; there is, perhaps, scarcely a village in India where the use of this drug, as such, is not known. Its action is that of a powerful irritant; it is not only had recourse to as an internal i-emedy, but is more frequently applied externally. The follow- ing case from this paper is very interesting, as showing the manner in which some women escape with life after having aborted from the lall chittra treatment :— * Foeticide, Madras Quart. Jour, of Med. Science, July 1861, p. 262.