Chapter XXII: Section 6: ,216, same as 303, N. Y. P. C (3)

_Corrosives_, if they do not produce perforation of stomach, will generally cause intense inflammation accompanied by softening of the inner coat, sometimes ending in gangrene. The inflammation varies as to its extent and intensity, sometimes affecting principally the mouth and œsophagus, but generally the changes are more pronounced in the stomach and duodenum, while in rare cases the inflammatory process may extend through the whole alimentary canal. The mucous membranes are sometimes bright red with longitudinal or transverse patches of a blackish color, formed by extravasated blood between the coats. _Carbolic acid_ often produces in the stomach and œsophagus white patches—when these patches are carefully examined, an ulcerated surface beneath them is generally seen.

_Narcotic Poisons._—It is a common but mistaken idea that these poisons produce some mark or characteristic effect upon the stomach walls; that they induce a rapid tendency to putrefaction; that the blood is in a fluid state; that hemorrhages are seen in various parts; that the stomach and intestines show sloughing without any inflammation. Some of these conditions may and probably do occur, but they are far from being invariable in their appearance. Experiments made by Orfila on animals with narcotic poisons prove the above statement. In conclusion, I would emphasize the fact that the _narcotic poisons produce no characteristic changes in the stomach that can be detected_.

=The Liver.=—The liver should be removed from the body and no attempt made to examine the organ _in situ_. After raising first one lobe and then the other, the diaphragm should be cut on either side and the suspensory and lateral ligaments divided, then the organ can easily be removed. The weight of the organ is ascertained, as also the measurements of its size recorded. The normal weight is from fifty to sixty ounces. The organ is normally about twelve inches in length by seven inches in depth by three and one-half inches in thickness.

The gall bladder is first examined to determine the character and amount of the bile and the presence or absence of gall stones, inflammatory lesions, and tumors.

At autopsies the surface of the liver, especially along the free border, is generally seen to be of a greenish or dark-brown color. This discoloration is due to the action of the gases developed by decomposition on the coloring matter of the blood, and has no pathological significance. The character of the surface of the liver is now noted, whether smooth or rough. The organ is opened by deep incisions in various directions, and the color, consistency, and blood supply of the liver tissue carefully recorded. The presence of new connective tissue, amyloid degeneration, abscesses, or tumors should not be overlooked. It should be remembered that, of all the poisons, phosphorus alone leaves characteristic appearances in the liver.

=The Pancreas.=—The pancreas is now easily removed, and its size and weight recorded. Normally it should weigh three ounces and measure eight inches in length by one and one-half inches in breadth by one inch in thickness. The organ should be opened by a longitudinal cut and examined for evidences of acute or chronic inflammation, fat-necrosis, tumors, calculi, and amyloid degeneration.

=Genito-Urinary Organs.=—It is very important in medico-legal cases that all the urine should be preserved and obtained uncontaminated; therefore before the bladder is opened a catheter should be introduced and the urine drawn off into a clean bottle which has previously been rinsed with distilled water. If more convenient the bladder itself can be punctured at its upper portion, a pipette introduced, and the urine drawn off in this manner.

The genito-urinary organs are removed together. This is done in the following manner. The body of the penis is pushed backward within the skin and cut off just behind the glans penis; the remaining portion of the rectum is raised. This with the prostate gland, bladder, and penis attached is removed by carrying the knife around the pelvis close to the bone and separating the pubic attachments. The organs are then laid on a clean board and the urethra is opened on a grooved director passed into the bladder, and the incision prolonged so that the internal surface of the bladder itself will be completely exposed. Examine the _urethra_ for strictures, inflammatory lesions, and ulcers. Examine the _bladder_ for congestion, hemorrhages, inflammation, and ulcers of its mucous surface, and note the thickness of its walls. Open the _rectum_ and examine for ulcers, strictures, tumors, and the evidence of hemorrhage. The _prostate_ gland is opened by a number of incisions into its substance. Examine for hypertrophies, tumors, and inflammatory lesions. Force the _testicles_ through the inguinal canal, and cut them off. Weigh, open, and examine them for evidence of inflammation, tuberculosis, and tumors.

=Female Organs.=—Before removing these organs, any abnormalities such as adhesions, malpositions, and tumors should be noted. Dissect the organs away from the pelvic bones by carrying the point of the knife around the pelvis close to the bone. Cut through the vagina at its lower third, and the rectum just above the anus. The organs can now readily be removed. Examine the _vulva_ for ulcers, hypertrophies, and tumors. Open and examine the _bladder_. Open the _vagina_ along its anterior border and carefully examine its mucous surface for evidences of inflammation.

THE UTERUS.—Before opening the uterus, its size and shape should be recorded. The average normal weight of the organ is about one and one-quarter ounces; its length three inches, breadth two inches, and thickness one inch. Open the organ along its anterior surface by a blunt-pointed scissors passed through the cervix, and the incision carried as far as the fundus. Note the thickness of its walls and any abnormalities of its mucous membrane. During menstruation, the mucous membrane of the body is thickened, softened, and covered with blood and detritus. Retention cysts are found in the mucous membrane of the cervix and are not generally of pathological significance.

Remove, measure, and weigh the _ovaries_. Their normal weight is about one drachm each; their size, one and one-half, by three-quarters, by one-half inch. Open the organs by a single incision and examine for the evidences of acute and chronic inflammations, tumors, and cysts. The _corpora lutea_ in various stages can be easily recognized in the substance of the organ. Open the _Fallopian tubes_ and examine their contents and the condition of their membranes (see DISPUTED PREGNANCY AND DELIVERY, Vol. II.).

THE SPINAL CORD.

To remove the cord, the body should be placed on its face with a block beneath the thorax. An incision is made through the skin and muscles along the entire length of the vertebral column and the soft parts dissected away so as to expose the transverse process of the vertebræ. The lamina are divided with a saw through the articulate process (a double-bladed saw specially adapted for this work can be obtained). After the lamina have been completely severed, these together with the spinous process can now be readily torn away with a stout hook and the cord exposed. A long chisel with a wooden mallet will often greatly facilitate this work. Great care should be exercised not to injure the cord. The roots of the spinal nerves are now severed, and the cord removed within its membrane. It should be remembered that serous fluid within the membranes of the cord, as also intense congestion, especially along its posterior aspect, is often seen as the result of post-mortem change. The cord is laid on a clean board and the dura mater opened with a blunt-pointed scissors along its anterior aspect, and an examination made for the presence of hemorrhage, inflammatory lesions, and tumors. Softening of the cord can generally be detected by the finger passed along it. This, however, is not a perfectly accurate test, especially if the body has been dead some time. The cord is now cut by transverse incisions about half an inch apart throughout its entire length, and the cut surface examined for the evidences of disease such as hemorrhages, softening, and inflammatory lesions.

After the cord has been removed, examine the vertebral column for the evidences of fractures and displacements.

LATE AUTOPSIES.

Late autopsies are those performed after partial or complete destruction of the soft parts of the body, through the natural processes of decomposition, or the examination of bones exhumed long after interment. The term may be employed also to mean the inspection of an embalmed body, dead for some time.

The object of late autopsies is to determine identity, or to establish the guilt or innocence of suspected persons. An examination of the skeleton even many years after death may give important information as to the manner in which the deceased came to his end. This cannot better be illustrated than by the citation of one or two cases.

In the celebrated case of “Eugene Aram,” the bones of his victim were discovered thirteen years after the crime had been committed. A man who afterward proved to be Aram’s accomplice was arrested on suspicion. He confessed the crime, and the opinion formed by the medical witnesses was confirmed by his statements. The skull presented evidence of fracture and indentation of a temporal bone. Aram argued the case in his own behalf, but the testimony was too strong against him: he was convicted and executed.

Taylor records the case of a man, Guerin, who was convicted of the murder of his brother from evidence obtained from an examination of the skeleton three years after interment. Here, again, blows upon the head were the cause of death, and the fractures were plainly perceptible upon the exhumed skull.

An autopsy upon a body before the soft parts have been entirely destroyed, or upon an embalmed body, should be conducted in much the same manner as ordinary autopsies. In these cases the method of burial should be noted. If it be a case of murder, and the body has been hurriedly put into the ground, it is not likely that the custom of Christian nations has been observed—that of laying the body full length, with the head to the west.

In the case of partially destroyed bodies, the remaining soft parts will give little evidence of the mode of death unless the violence has been very extensive, and even then it may be impossible to determine whether a wound was inflicted prior to or after death. Recourse must be had to the skeleton, and the only evidence it can furnish is of fractures, unless, as happened in one case, a rope be found about the cervical vertebræ.

When the skeleton only is found, Taylor lays stress upon the following points:

(1) Whether the bones belong to a human being or one of the lower animals.

(2) If a human being, whether male or female.

(3) The length of time they have probably remained in the ground.

(4) The probable age of the individual to whom they belonged. If the maxillary bones be found, much information may be obtained from an examination of the teeth.

(5) The probable stature of the individual during life.

(6) The race to which he belonged. The conformation of the skull and thickness of the bones will give important information on this point.

(7) It should be determined whether solitary bones belong to the right or left side, and whether they form parts of one or more than one skeleton.

(8) Whether they have been fractured, and if so, whether it occurred during life, or by accident at the time of the exhumation. If it occurred during life, whether it be recent or of long standing.

(9) The presence or absence of personal deformities, of supernumerary fingers or toes, of curvature of the spine, of ankylosis of one or more joints.

(10) Whether they have been calcined, as murderers sometimes try to make away with the bodies of their victims by burning. Especially is this the case in infanticides (see IDENTITY, Vol. I., p. 408 _et seq._; TIME OF DEATH, Vol. I., p. 452 _et seq._).

AUTOPSIES OF FRAGMENTS.

These cases are usually cases of murder in the perpetration of which the criminal has mutilated the body with a view to destroying all traces of identity.

The importance which attaches to autopsies of fragments rests upon the fact that parts of a body may be found widely separated, and that one portion may be found before the others. In such cases it will be necessary to determine if they belong to one and the same body. The examination is conducted chiefly with a view to establishing this.

The examiner must note the manner in which the fragment has been separated; whether it is clean cut, as by one who understood something of anatomy, or, whether it has been separated roughly and by one ignorant of the body structure. The determination of this point will be one link in the chain of evidence which may lead to the detection of the criminal, or the acquittal of one accused. An anatomist or a butcher would be likely to cut through at a joint, and to do it neatly. The exact point at which the severance has taken place should be noted. The place of finding, the circumstances under which found, the condition and general appearance of the fragment should all be carefully recorded. The color of the skin will indicate with some accuracy the race to which the individual belonged. The probable sex may be determined by the presence or absence of hair, and the general conformation. This, however, will not apply in the case of children. The probable age may be fixed upon from the size and degree of development of the fragment. The cut surface should be carefully described, and if possible a drawing should be made of it.

There are special considerations which apply to certain parts of the body.

=The Head.=—The exact point of severance should be recorded. The number of vertebræ which remain attached to the head should be counted, and if the section pass through a vertebra, its number and the amount of it missing should be stated. The sex will be apparent in all instances; the race may be determined both by the color of the skin and by the shape of the head; the age may be approximated, though care must be had in expressing an opinion, for the manner of living is well known to affect the appearance of age. Evidence of violence prior to death should be noted, and the presence or absence of fractures ascertained; also observe the color of the hair and whether it be thin or abundant; the presence or absence of beard or mustache, and if present the color; and the color of the eyes.

=The Arm.=—The following points should be determined: the color of the skin as indication of race; the probable sex from its shape and general conformation; the probable age from its size and degree of development; marks of any kind, such as tattooing; and deformities, such as signs of old or recent fracture, or dislocation; and supernumerary fingers.

=The Leg.=—The examination of the leg should be conducted in much the same manner as that of the arm.

=The Trunk.=—An examination of the trunk will reveal the race, sex, and probable age, and may give evidence as regards the manner in which the deceased came to his or her death. Any marks or deformities should be recorded, and in all cases the viscera should be examined.

MEDICO-LEGAL REPORTS.[568]

After making a medico-legal autopsy, it will be necessary for the medical examiner to draw up a report of his findings, and the conclusions based thereon. The report should be clear and concise, and the language such as a coroner’s jury can understand. Technical terms should be avoided, and when their employment is necessary they should be explained in the margin or in parentheses.

The report should be drawn up in somewhat the following manner:

1. When and under what circumstances the body was first seen; stating hour of day, day of week and month.

2. When deceased was last seen living, or known to be alive.

3. Any circumstances that would lead to a suspicion of suicide or murder.

4. Time after death at which the examination was made, if it can be ascertained.

5. The external appearance of the body: whether the surface is livid or pallid.

6. State of countenance.

7. Any marks of violence on the person, disarrangement of the dress, blood-stains, etc.

8. Presence or absence of warmth in the legs, abdomen, arms, armpits, or mouth.

9. Presence or absence of rigor mortis.

To give any value to this point it is necessary for the witness to observe the nature of the substance upon which the body is lying; whether the body be clothed or naked, young or old, fat or emaciated. These conditions materially influence the rapidity of cooling and the onset of rigor mortis.

10. Upon first opening the body the color of the muscles should be noted. Carbon monoxide poisoning causes them to be of a cherry-red color.

11. The condition of the blood and its color.

12. The state of the abdominal viscera, describing each one in the order in which it is removed (see p. 370). If the stomach and intestines are inflamed the seat of the inflammation should be exactly specified; also all evidences of softening, ulceration, effusion of blood, corrosion, or perforation. The presence of hardened fæces in the rectum will bear evidence that no purging occurred immediately before death.

13. The state of the heart and lungs. (For special consideration of the lungs in cases of suspected infanticide, see Vol. II.; and of persons drowned, see Vol. I., p. 805 _et seq._).

14. The state of the brain and spinal cord.

After a thorough consideration of the results of the examination, conclusions must be drawn from this examination; never from the statements of others. The conclusions commonly relate to whether death was due to natural or unnatural causes; if to unnatural causes, what are the facts which lead the examiner to this opinion. As the conclusions are intended to form a summary of the whole report, they must be brief and tersely stated.

PERSONAL IDENTITY,

INCLUDING

THE METHODS USED FOR ITS DETERMINATION IN THE
DEAD AND LIVING.

BY

IRVING C. ROSSE, A.M., M.D., F.R.G.S. (ENG.),

_Professor of Nervous Diseases, Georgetown University; Membre du
Congrès International d’Anthropologie Criminelle, etc._

PERSONAL IDENTITY.

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.

Identity is the determination of the individuality of a person. In jurisprudence the term is applied to the recognition of a person who is the object of a judicial action. The establishment of the individuality of a person is known as _absolute_ identity; while the relations of a person with some particular act is known as _relative_ identity.

The great number and variety of facts concerned in the investigation of questions of identity are of considerable gravity and importance in their juridical bearing, and at the same time they are among the most interesting and most useful of the applications of modern medicine to the purposes of the law.[569]

Among the varied researches of legal medicine looking to an interpretation of facts, no other question occurs in which the solution depends more upon morphological and anatomical knowledge, and none is more dependent upon purely objective, visible, tangible facts.

Personal identity often constitutes the entire subject-matter of dispute in a civil case. Upon it may depend the question of absence or of marriage, of kinship or of filiation involving the possession of an estate, in which case the court often requires the most subtle of scientific evidence to assist in its decision. Many anthropological and medical facts, now appropriated by criminology and penal science, are useful in proving not only the present but in attesting future identity, thereby preventing in great measure the dissimulation of prisoners, deserters, false claimants to life insurance, fraudulent pensioners, and the like.

Such matters are of daily occurrence. The special agents of the U. S. Pension Office detect and cause the punishment of many fraudulent claimants. Stratagems and conspiracies to defraud life-insurance companies go much further than mere substitution. Instead of a “fraudulent” a positive death may come up for investigation, and in order to defraud an insurance company of a large amount, a body may even be procured by homicide to consummate the deception, as was done in the Goss-Udderzook tragedy near Baltimore in 1872.

A celebrated case now before the Supreme Court of the United States and involving the question of personal identity is that of the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, the New York Life Insurance Company, and the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company of Hartford, Connecticut (Consolidated), plaintiffs in error, vs. Sallie E. Hillmon.

It is pre-eminently in criminal trials that the personal identity of the victim often constitutes an essential connecting link. Before it can move, the law requires, at the outset, proof of the individuality of both the author of a crime and of the victim. I shall, therefore, not touch upon such elusive individuals as Charlie Ross and Jack the Ripper, but limit my remarks to a synthetical exposition of the best-known facts regarding identification of the dead body and the interpretation of its organic remains.

The identity of a living person, or even our own identity, is often a difficult point to establish. It may also require medical evidence, oftentimes of a most involved character, to establish the fact of death. Hence the medico-legal process of connecting a dead body, or the remains or traces of the same, with a human being once known to have lived and moved on earth, is beset with difficulties that may give rise to still greater antagonisms of evidence. The question of personal identity is one of the hardest that could possibly come before a court. Celebrated cases and judicial errors have given it great notoriety. There are consequently few questions in forensic medicine that require more attention and sagacity, and none upon which the medical legist should pronounce with more reserve and circumspection. Medical men are absolutely the _only_ persons qualified to assist in resolving the really delicate question of personal identity; yet the physician and the lawyer pursue the same line of logic and of inquiry. As the former must have a subject to dissect or to operate upon, so must the lawyer in pursuing a criminal investigation first prove a visible material substance known in legal phraseology as the _corpus delicti_, which he must connect with some personality, with some human being once known to have lived. In this important process the physician’s testimony being the indispensable guide of the court’s inference, he should limit himself to purely anatomical and material knowledge. The medical expert has absolutely nothing to do with guilt or innocence, as that is a question for the jury. He should, above all things, be absolutely free from prejudice, suspicion, or undue suggestion, and should remember that in thus sinking his personality his sole function as a skilled witness in cases of identity is to furnish testimony which, when taken in connection with other evidence in the case, may establish such a _corpus delicti_ as would justify the inference of a crime.

A nice point may arise as to dispensing with the proof from the body itself, when the substantial general fact of a homicide is proved _aliunde_, as in the case of a criminal causing the disappearance of his victim’s body by means of its decomposition in lime or other chemical menstrua, or by submerging it in an unfathomable spot in the sea. Under circumstances such as the following: a person is seen to enter a building and is not seen to leave it, although all means of egress therefrom are watched; another person is seen to ignite the building, which thereupon burns down, and the charred remains of a human body are found in the ruins; the proof of identity from the body itself might be dispensed with in view of the substantial general fact of a homicide having been committed. In a delicate case where the man of art hesitates and finds no _corpus delicti_, the investigation of imprints and stains may give a clew of great value to the expert. Yet it is only upon absolute evidence, and in the strongest possible case, that the fundamental principle of the _corpus delicti_ is disregarded.

In the case of Ruloff, the child’s body was not produced and no trace of it could be alleged to have been found; nevertheless the prisoner was found guilty of murder. This case was speedily overruled (18 N. Y., 179), on the ground that a dangerous precedent had been pronounced.

So indispensable is the showing of the _corpus delicti_ in cases of recognition that lawyers have come to regard even the judicial confession of an accused as often the flimsiest and most unsatisfactory kind of evidence. Numerous cases of demonstrated fallibility of confessions are cited in the books, where the statement was utterly lacking in anything except motive or hallucination. In the Proceedings of the New York Medico-Legal Society, December 6th, 1876, Mr. James Appleton Morgan mentions the case of a German servant-girl who assured her mistress, whose little boy, a child of seven, had just died and been buried, that she (the servant) had poisoned the boy. The servant swore to her crime and was taken into custody, and it was only when no poison was discovered upon exhuming the child’s body and examining its stomach that against her own protest she was acquitted of the possibility of the crime. Another case of the kind that has had medico-legal notoriety was tried a few years ago before a court in Brittany. The accused declared that he had killed his servant and thrown the body in a pond. His guilt seemed certain, when the alleged victim put in an appearance, thus reducing the evidence to the strange hallucination that had prompted the confession.

But the most wonderful of these is the celebrated case of Boorn, in which medico-legal evidence took no part. In view of the seeming hopelessness of his case, the accused confessed to murder in expectation of mercy from the court, but was finally acquitted on the alleged victim walking into court and confronting the man who had sworn to having killed him.

Although wisdom and experience point to the necessity of showing something corporal and material in cases involving questions of life and death, yet very small traces or minute remains of a human body may, in certain circumstances, constitute a _corpus delicti_ that may lead to trial if not to conviction. In 1868 the Lambert case, for murder on the high seas, was tried before Judge Benedict in the United States Court, the only _corpus delicti_ alleged being a large pool of blood and brains found on the forecastle of a ship at sea, out of sight of land or other vessel. Circumstances, acts, and words pointed strongly to the murder of one of the crew, who was believed to have been brained with an axe and thrown overboard. Notwithstanding the fact that animosity was known to exist between the accused and the missing man, it further appeared that the accused, in a state of great excitement, had followed the missing man forward and returned alone with a hatchet in his hand, yet the jury in this instance were not satisfied as to the establishment of a _corpus delicti_ beyond a reasonable doubt and accordingly failed to convict.

Two classical cases, that of Gardelle and of Dr. Webster, mentioned in many of the books, stand forth as instances of conviction where fragments of the human body were recognized after attempts to destroy them by intense heat. The conviction of Dr. Webster rested almost entirely upon medico-legal evidence; but it is probable that upon the same circumstantial evidence the increased industry of counsel would have so rung the changes in regard to its uncertain and unsafe nature, and would have so used the knowledge gained from advanced discoveries in the regions of the probabilities of science, as to have secured the acquittal of the prisoner had the trial taken place at the present time.

A similar affair of great medico-legal interest is the Goss-Udderzook tragedy, already referred to, an account of which is given by Drs. Lewis and Bombaugh among the “Remarkable Stratagems and Conspiracies for Defrauding Life Insurance Companies,” New York and London, 1878.

IDENTITY OF BURNT REMAINS.

The medical jurist will no doubt find cremation a formidable barrier in elucidating the question of identity, although the entire destruction of a dead body is a matter of extreme difficulty.

In the case of calcination chemical analysis of the ash would detect the phosphate of lime, but this would throw no light upon the subject, since the ash of human bones and that of the lower animals is identical. If the burnt bone is entire, the state of the epiphyses may enlighten the question of the determination of age. The following two cases, in which fragments or portions of bone had been submitted to the action of fire, show how medical training and some knowledge of comparative anatomy may contribute to the establishment of guilt or may attest innocence.

In the case of The Queen _vs._ John Henry Wilson, for murder, the accused burnt his step-father in a lime-kiln for over a week, and on strewing ashes from the kiln fine fragments of bone picked up were afterward identified as human. At the trial identity rested on the fact of finding two buttons and a buckle, which were recognized as part of the deceased’s wearing apparel when last seen.

In the second case, that of a young woman supposed to be in the family way who should not have been, it was thought that she had been confined and made away with the infant. Under this supposition the premises where she lived were searched by the chief constable, who found in the stove some bones and fragments of bones that had been burnt. On examination by a qualified medical man, the fragments turned out to be not human bones, but those of some other animal, presumably those of a pig and of a chicken, which the family, who lived in a tenement-house without a back yard, had put in the stove to get rid of the refuse.[570]

IDENTIFICATION OF HUMAN BONES.

In deciding whether certain bones are human or not, the medical jurist should exercise great caution in venturing an opinion as to the precise animal of which he may believe they formed a part. There is no great difficulty in detecting the smallest fragments of bone by means of the microscope, but we cannot say with safety whether the fragments belonged to a mouse, a man, or an elephant. A real difficulty occurs in recognizing the nature and origin of the bony remains when only a small fragment or a single bone is submitted for report. If a sufficient portion of the skeleton be submitted it can be easily recognized as human, as in the imbedded remains of the troglodyte found in the limestone deposit of Luray Cave, Virginia, and only in the exceptional case of the bones of one of the manlike apes could a difficulty of distinction arise. The characteristic signs that distinguish a gorilla skeleton, for instance, are the smaller thumb; notable length of tibia and of radius, although this relative length of extremities has been remarked in negroes; small facial angle, 30° to 40° in the monkey, 70° to 80° in man; very inferior cranial capacity, the maximum in a gorilla being 550 cubic centimetres, while the minimum in the human species is from 970 with a maximum of 1,500 to 1,900 centimetres; a low index of the foramen magnum; convexity of the squamo-parietal suture, and larger and more salient canines and incisors. The volume of the endocranium in the female gorilla, like that of the human species, is smaller than that of the male; this difference being almost 80 c.c. for the anthropoid female.

In studying the osseous system it should be remembered that certain modifying elements, as artificial compression, pathological deformities, posthumous distortions, and hygrometric conditions, may affect particularly the skull, and if due allowance be not made for these the study may lead to glaring absurdities. Not longer ago than 1725 there was found in a quarry at Œningen the skull of a fossil batrachian compressed into rude resemblance to the human cranium, which was announced to the world as Scheuchzer’s “_Homo diluvii testis et theoscopos_,” and as the remains of one of the sinful antediluvians who perished in the Noachic deluge.

ARE THE BONES OLD OR RECENT?

An important point may arise in questions of identification of bones as to the oldness: whether they are old or recent. The first indication is furnished by the presence or by the absence of the soft parts. The existence of the periosteum and of the spinal marrow is the most persistent proof of a recent state; but these alone with the soft parts are usually destroyed in two or three years. In ordinary circumstances a body becomes skeletonized in about ten years, although in exceptional cases the cadaver may resist decomposition after many years.[571]

This summer in transferring an old cemetery in Georgetown, D. C., the remains of the grandmother of one of the writer’s patients were found in such a state of preservation as to be easily recognized after fifty years of burial. More recently, in unearthing the remains of an old graveyard in East Washington, a striking peculiarity was noticed in the fact that many bodies of young people buried in recent years when taken up consisted of a few blackened bones and shreds of grave-clothes. while the remains of many older people buried long before the Civil War were found in an excellent state of preservation. One of these was a Mr. Fullin, who died from the effects of a sunstroke forty years ago and was buried in a metallic case. An old lady who attended his funeral was present when his remains were unearthed and said they looked as natural as when he was laid away in 1852. The features were well preserved and even the white linen of the shroud was unsoiled.

Alterations in the texture of the bone, such as that caused by dryness and by diminution in the proportion of organic matter, may be ascertained by histological examination, and one of the characters of age may be furnished by taking into consideration the specific weight. Placing the skull at an average density of 1,649, that of an infant would be 1,515, an adult 1,726, and that of old age 1,636.

Ascertaining the proportion of organic and inorganic matter, the phosphates and carbonates, by chemical means may furnish an additional help in the interpretation of the remains.

With all these diagnostic methods it may still be impossible to establish identity either absolute or relative, even where a whole skeleton is in question. The evidence may, however, be of great juridical use to the accused, as in the case of Van Solen, tried for the murder of Dr. Henry Harcourt, where the collective facts pointed to the identification of a body dead two years. The jury, however, after a second trial, were instructed to acquit unless they were certain that the remains were Harcourt’s. They acquitted, as no _one_ decided and apparent feature was known to have existed by which the remains could be identified beyond a doubt.[572]

IDENTITY IN CASE OF ENTIRE SKELETON OR IN CASE OF ISOLATED BONES.

Where an entire human skeleton has been discovered, the objects of inquiry here, as in the case of fragments or remains, are to establish the identity of the victim and that of the author of the act, and to collect all available information relative to the nature of the death and to the diverse circumstances attending the commission of the deed.

In gathering evidence from the examination of the skeleton or of isolated bones, with a view to find out the probable cause of death of the person of whom they form a part, a great variety of questions will arise for consideration, such as those relating to race, stature, age, sex, and trade or occupation; the exterior signs furnished by dentition; the traces of congenital peculiarity or of injury, and the signs of disease either hereditary or acquired.

DETERMINATION OF RACE.

The question of race in connection with the subject of identification is of more than usual importance in the United States, owing to our motley population, composed as it is of aboriginal Americans, Chinamen, negroes, and of Europeans and their descendants. I well remember the first human bones that I saw exhumed. They were discovered in digging the foundation of a building near a kitchen-midden on one of the tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay. The apparent oldness of the bones and the finding of stone arrow-heads, tomahawks, and fragments of aboriginal pottery in the immediate vicinity were additional accessory facts that strengthened the presumption of the bones being those of a Choptank Indian.

Roughly speaking, there is not much trouble in recognizing the platycnemic tibiæ of the mound-builder, the skull of a Flathead Indian, an Inca skull, a negro skull, or even the skull peculiar to the lower order of Irish.

In many very old skulls a considerable portion of hair is often found attached. This of course may lend assistance in the matter of race identity. A few years since I undertook at the Smithsonian Institution a series of micro-photographs of the structure and arrangement of hair, with a view to race classification as suggested by Professor Huxley. Various specimens of hair from the yellow races were compared with that of fair and of blue-eyed persons, with the hair of negroes, with reindeer hair, and with the hair-like appendage found on the fringy extremity of the baleen plates in the mouth of a “bowhead” whale. The experiments, though far from satisfactory, were sufficiently conclusive to enable one to recognize approximately the horse-like hair of some of the yellow races, that of the negro, and that of a blond Caucasian.

Beyond the forementioned characteristics, the task of race recognition from observation of the skull is one of great difficulty and perplexity with illusory results. A considerable experience of several years with the large collection of skulls in the Army Medical Museum enables me to speak advisedly on this point.[573]

Although the technical procedures of craniometry require special measurements and employ an arsenal of special instruments, the results are far from conclusive as regards the determination of human types. Time and space do not permit the mention even in epitome of the various methods most relied upon by trained craniologists. Among the oldest operations of cephalometry, as well as the most incomplete, is the measurement of the so-called facial angle, which is employed to distinguish the skull of a lower order of animal from that of the negro and the white man. This angle, acute in the skulls of the lower animals, approaches a right angle as we ascend the zoological scale; being from 30° to 65° in the various apes; 75° in the Mongolian; about 70° in the negro, and between 80° and 90° for whites. The prognathous (projecting) jaws of the negro cranium are distinctive, as well as the shape of the nasal opening, which in the black is an equilateral triangle, while it is isosceles in the white. The books usually speak of the Eskimo skull as pyramidal, which in point of fact is not true. Inspection and examination of a large collection of Eskimo crania has changed and greatly modified some of the previous notions of the conventional Eskimo skull. From more than one hundred, collected in the vicinity of Bering Strait,[574] I find that the skulls present very considerable variations among themselves; some being brachycephalic, others dolichocephalic. In many the facial angle is 80°, and in one instance 84°, which exceeds that observed by me in many German skulls. Nor is the prominence of the zygomatic arches such a constant difference in the configuration as to justify one in speaking of the skull as pyramidal. On the contrary, in many of the specimens lines drawn from the most projecting part of the zygomatic arch and touching the sides of the frontal bone, instead of forming a triangle on being elongated, might, like the asymptotes of a parabola, be extended to infinity and never meet. The index of the foramen magnum in these skulls is about the same as that of European crania. The internal capacity shows marked difference, the cubic contents of the endocranium averaging that of the French or Germans.

As some modern writers lay great stress on the measurement of the cranial capacity, not only as an aid to race identification, but as an adjunct in the study of the criminal and insane classes, it may not be amiss to give the salient facts relative thereto.

It is admitted that the cranial capacity may vary with the intellectual state, hydrocephalic skulls, of course, being excluded. Microcephalic adults give a figure inferior to that of gorillas, some being as low as 419 c.c. Andaman Islanders and autochthonous Australians appear, in respect to cranial capacity, to be most badly off. The capacity of an Andaman has been found as low as 1,094 c.c.; while that of Australians (autochthonous) and of some American tribes show an average capacity of 1,224 c.c. in the normal as well as in their deformed crania. The cranial capacity increases in the yellow races and attains its maximum in the white races. In the middle European race 1,500 c.c. may be accepted as the average; 1,750 c.c. is the maximum, and anything above is macrocephalic; while the minimum is 1,206 c.c., which is rather too low than too high. According to Topinard’s nomenclature of the cranial capacity, macrocephalic in the adult European male are those having a capacity of 1,950 c.c. and above; a large skull is one of 1,950 to 1,650 c.c.; average or ordinary, 1,650 to 1,450 c.c.; small, 1,450 to 1,150 c.c.; microcephalic 1,150 c.c. and below. It would seem that the skulls of the insane are below the type, a measurement of sixteen male skulls giving an average of only 1,449 c.c. Scotchmen head the list with the most voluminous skulls, and according to a tabular statement made up from Welcker, Aitken, Broca, and Meigs, the English come next, with a capacity of 1,572 c.c. Then follow Eskimo, 1,483 c.c.; Germans, 1,448 c.c.; French, 1,403 to 1,461 c.c.; South African negroes, 1,372 c.c.; Ancient Peruvians, 1,361 c.c.; Malay, 1,328 c.c.; Mexican, 1,290 c.c.; Hottentot and Polynesian, each 1,230 c.c.; Australians, 1,364 c.c.; and Nubians, 1,313 c.c. The cranial capacity in man, like that of the anthropoid apes, varies according to sex, the difference being so great that it is necessary to measure separately.

In the troglodyte skulls of prehistoric times the variation is not more than 99.5 c.c.; but in the contemporaneous races the difference varies from 143 to 220 c.c. French craniologists usually speak of the Auvernats as possessing the highest cerebral capacity (1,523 c.c.), and mention the skull of a Parisian of 1,900 c.c. as the highest known. Some Eskimo skulls, however, measure from 1,650 to 1,715 c.c., and two eurycephalic Indian skulls in the anatomical section of the Army Medical Museum measure respectively 1,785 and 1,920 c.c.

Mr. Havelock Ellis, speaking of the psychic characteristics of criminals, says that the lower human races present a far larger proportion of anatomical abnormities than the ordinary European population; and Sir William Turner writes of the skulls collected during the _Challenger_ expedition that although their number is certainly too limited to base any broad generalization on, as to the relative frequency of occurrence of particular variations in the different races, there is obviously a larger proportion of important variations than would occur in a corresponding number of skulls of the white races. Thus, for example, the squamo-frontal articulation is found in less than two per cent of European skulls, while it is found in twenty per cent of negroes, according to Ecker, and 16.9 in Australian skulls, according to Virchow. Again, the spheno-pterygoid foramen is found in 4.8 per cent of European skulls and in 20 per cent of American Indians; 30 per cent in Africans; 32 per cent in Asiatics, and 50 per cent in Australians. The wormian bones are also more common among the lower races; as a rule, the cranial sutures coalesce much earlier and the teeth are more precocious.

PHOTOGRAPHY, though of undoubted service in craniometry, has been applied as a crucial test in the matter of identity and found wanting. It is objected to on the ground that it has no character of precision, and that photographs of the skull have the common defect of being central, not orthogonal projections, such as anthropometry requires. Besides, the lenses of cameras are not uniformly perfect. Anatomists know, moreover, that salient differences in any collection of crania prevent methodical enumeration and constitute the stumbling-block of ethnic craniology. Cephalometry shows, further, that dolichocephalic, mesaticephalic, and brachycephalic skulls do not belong exclusively to the white, the yellow, or the black race, but exist among the three as a result of evolution.

On this subject Professor Lombroso, among the foremost contemporaneous medico-legal writers, cites the cranial asymmetry of Pericles, of Romagnosi, of Bichat, of Kant, of Chenevix, and of Dante, who presented an abnormal development of the left parietal bone and two osteomata on the frontal bone. Besides, there is the Neanderthaloid skull of Robert Bruce and the ultra-dolichocephaly noticeable in the skull of O’Connell, which contrasts with the mesocephaly of the Irish. The median occipital fossa is noticeable in the skull of Scarpa, while Volta’s skull shows several characteristics which anthropologists consider to belong to the lower races, such as prominence of the styloid apophyses, simplicity of the coronal suture, traces of the median frontal suture, obtuse facial angle (73°), and moreover the remarkable cranial sclerosis, which at places attains a thickness of 16 mm. (five-eighths of an inch). Further mention is made of the submicrocephaly in Descartes, Tissot, Hoffman, Schumann, and others.

De Quatrefages noted the greatest degree of macrocephaly in a lunatic, the next in a man of genius. Cranial capacity in men of genius is usually above the average, having been found as high as 1,660 c.c. in Thackeray, 1,830 c.c. in Cuvier, and 2,012 c.c. in Tourgueneff. The capacity is often found above the average in insanity, but numerous exceptions occur in which it drops below the ordinary average, as in the submicrocephalic skulls of Liebig, Döllinger, Hausmann, Gambetta, Dante, and Shelley.

From what has just been said, it follows that skull measurements for medico-legal purposes have no more significance than the fact that some men are taller and some shorter than others. The medical jurist should, therefore, not be too dogmatic in drawing conclusions as to race from the skull alone. To complete the diagnosis in the matter of skeletal race peculiarity, the splay foot of the negro with the unusual backward projection of the heel-bone, as well as the greater relative length of the tibia and of the radius, may be taken into consideration. There are other characteristics of the lower jaw and of the facial bones generally, the study of which leads up to the realm of transcendental anatomy; so their further consideration would hardly appeal to the “dispassionate, sympathetic, contemplative jury” of our enlightened countrymen.

DETERMINATION OF HEIGHT OR STATURE.

When we have the entire skeleton to deal with, the height or stature may be determined with a reasonable degree of certainty by allowing from one to two inches for the soft parts. Most of the proportions given in works on artistic anatomy approach mathematical exactness. For instance, if both upper and lower extremities are extended after the manner of spokes in a wheel, and a point corresponding to the umbilicus be taken as a centre, the circumference of a circle described therefrom should touch the bottom of the feet and the tips of the middle fingers. When the arms are extended horizontally the line included in the middle-finger tips equals the height in the generality of men, although in exceptional cases it may vary. The negro giant, Nelson Pickett, is reported to have been eight feet four inches high, while his outstretched arms measured nine feet from tip to tip. Ordinarily the upper part of the symphysis pubis is the centre of the body. Some anatomists contend that this important point is really below the symphysis in the average man. The length of the foot about equals that of the head. According to Quetelet, its length is just one-ninth of the body in women, a little more than one-ninth in men. The conventional representation of the human foot with a second longer toe is, according to Professor Flower (see “Fashion in Deformity”), of negro origin and does not represent what is most usual in our race and time. Statistics of measurements made in England by several observers on hundreds of barefooted children fail to show one instance in which _the second toe is the longer_.[575]

Taken singly the bones may enable an approximate estimate of the height of the person when alive; but it should be remembered in connection with this subject that the height is not a fixed quantity, since it differs according to upright or recumbent position, also before and after a night’s rest. Moreover, the alleged height of the deceased may have been taken in boots and is probably incorrect.

Many tables of measurements have been constructed for the purpose of determining the height from the dimensions of the bones; but the relation that exists between the total height and the dimensions of different bones varies according to age, sex, asymmetry, and individual peculiarities, hence the tables will not bear the critical examination that warrants their use with assured correctness, even in a majority of cases. The femur is the bone that gives the best results in these measurements. Isolated fragments have been included in the enumeration; the nose and the middle finger multiplied by 32 and by 19 or 20 giving the approximate height. While the foregoing calculations will not bear scientific scrutiny, they are of sufficient importance to be taken in connection with other facts in determining the probable length of the skeleton. Among the most trustworthy of these tables are those of Dr. Dwight, of Harvard University.

DETERMINATION OF AGE.

The age is a still more difficult matter to state precisely. Even during life one may be as much as ten years out in guessing the age of an adult, while the error may be from fifteen to twenty years in the case of a corpse. Dr. Tourdes mentions a case where the age was guessed as sixty and sixty-five in a deceased person aged eighty-five.

The state of the osseous system and the condition and number of the teeth, which strictly speaking are not bone, are among the surest guides in the determination of age. The signs furnished thereby may vary according to the periods of increase, maturity, and decline.

During fœtal life and even at the epoch of birth the bone centres are few. The distal end of the femur, the proximal end of the tibia, and the astragalus are ossified at birth. Points of ossification appear in successive order of development. The exact period at which the bones begin to ossify and the progress of bony union being detailed in standard works on anatomy, it would be superfluous to repeat them here. These changes are, however, not absolutely certain as to time and order, as the tip of the acromion process of the scapula sometimes remains ununited throughout life; the ossification of the sternum and of the costal cartilages is very uncertain, while the teeth, like certain railway trains, are only due when they arrive.

From the character of the progress of consolidation of the skeleton the age may be estimated with a reasonable approach to accuracy up to twenty-five or thirty years, which is the stationary period as regards alteration in the osseous system. Above this period it is difficult to arrive at the age. About forty the cranial sutures[576] begin to disappear, although the time of the closure of the sutures varies within large limits; the coccyx becomes consolidated; ossification begins in the thyroid cartilage and in that of the first rib (although this state of the rib is regarded by many as pathological); the lower jaw, which in the fœtus and in infancy formed an obtuse angle, now assumes nearly a right angle. As senility progresses toward decrepitude, the bones become lighter and more brittle, owing to fatty atrophy, and their medullary canal larger; the jaw returns to its infantile shape from loss of teeth and atrophy of the alveolar processes; the bodies of the vertebræ (according to some authorities) bevel off in front; osteophytes are formed, and the neck of the femur approaches the horizontal. (See Abortion and Infanticide.)

DETERMINATION OF SEX.