SCIENTIFIC EXAMINATION IN MURDER CASES. 



Great facilities are afforded by microscopes, chemical tests, and 

 the rescearches of modern physiology in affirming or disproving cir- 

 cumstantial evidence as to murderers. Dr. H. Burdell was found 

 stabbed in his own room in this city on the morning of the 29th ult. 

 There was bad feeling existing between him and his house-keeper, 

 and many circumstances fastened suspicion on her and one of the 

 boarders, but science has removed some of what were at first strong 

 indications of guilt. A dagger was found in her drawer faintly 

 stained with blood ; these stains are proved by chemical analysis to 

 be rust. A very palpable bloody stain on a blue silk dress, proves 

 to be sugar, or fruit preserves, and blood found on various clothing 

 about the house, is traced to other sources by the same agency. A 

 knife from the place of business of the suspected boarder, and a 

 newspaper found in his room, showed stains which responded to 

 chemical tests for blood and under the microscope showed the blood 

 discs or red globules to be arterial. This will propably weigh some- 

 what against him. 



It will be recollected that in the investigation which resulted in 

 convicting Dr. Webster of the murder of Dr. Parkman, in Boston, 

 the microscope applied to blood on the shoe of the former, disproved 

 his explanation that it was from butcher's meat, by showing the 

 globules, or blood discs to be round instead of longish, or egg form- 

 ed, as are those of animals. — Scintific American. 



The last paragraph of the above contains a grave error. The 

 blood discs of all Mammals (that is animals that suckle their young) 

 are round, like those of human blood ; with the exception of some 

 of the camel tribe. The mere roundness of the blood discs then 

 would not prove their origin for all our common 'butchers' meat' 

 animals have round discs. Birds and reptiles have oval ones. The 

 musk Deer has tlie smallest discs; they are only one twelve-thous- 

 andth of an inch in diameter. In man they are four times greater 

 diameter, that is about one three-thousandth of an inch in diameter. 

 In birds and reptiles, they are still larger, and in the" Proteus (a frog - 

 like animal) they are larger than in any animal yet observed, being 

 a little less than one three-huudrcth of an inch in diameter. 



It is a very interesting sight to view these globules chasing each 

 other through the veins and arteries, as may be done by placing the 

 web of a frogs foot, or a fishes tail, or mouses ear, under the mi- 

 croscope. (^^2) 



