46 THE LESIONS IN CERTAIN FORMS OF DEATH FROM VIOLENCE. 



If the person has struggled in the water and clutched at objects 

 within his reach, there may be evidences of this in excoriation of the 

 fingers or in the presence of sand, weeds, etc., under the nails or grasped 

 in the hands. 



External marks of injury, bruises, etc., should be sought for, since 

 persons in dying, or on being thrown into the water with homicidal 

 intent, may have died from the violence, and not, strictly speaking, from 

 drowning. It should also be borne in mind in such complex cases that 

 injuries, not in themselves fatal, may, when the body is in the water, 

 prove so on account of the inability of the person to rescue himself or 

 gain time for recovery from the injury, and that then the struggle for 

 breath may be but slight, and the more prominent signs of drowning but 

 little marked. 



INTERNAL EXAMINATION. 



The Brain. Congestion of the brain and its membranes is found only 

 in a small proportion of cases. 



The Blood, when death occurs from asphyxia, is usually fluid through- 

 out the body and of a dark color, as in asphyxia from other causes. 



The Air Passages. In persons who die from asphyxia the mucous mem- 

 brane of the larnyx, trachea, and bronchi is usually congested, and the 

 air passages contain a variable quantity of bloody or mucous froth. In 

 persons dying in the water from other causes than asphyxia, these ap- 

 pearances are absent. Foreign substances from the water, such as sand, 

 weeds, etc., or materials regurgitated from the stomach, may find their 

 way into the air passages during the act of drowning or as a post-mortem 

 occurrence. Thus, in bodies washed about the bottom, sand or mud may 

 get into the air passages for a certain distance, from the mechanical ac- 

 tion of the water. 



The Lungs in typical cases are distended so that they fill the thorax 

 and cover the heart. The increased size is due partly to congestion, 

 partly to the presence of the fluid in which the person was drowned, 

 which is often inspired during the act of drowning, a^d partly to the 

 distention of the air vesicles with air. In cases of drowning in which 

 there is a struggle and water is breathed in, the lungs may contain con- 

 siderable fluid ; but, as a result of decomposition, this may find its way 

 in greater or less quantity into the pleural cavities by transudation, 

 leaving the lungs comparatively empty. It should be remembered, how- 

 ever, that a considerable quantity of reddish fluid may collect in the 

 pleural cavities under other conditions than drowning, through a post- 

 mortem change, by transudatiou from the blood-vessels and other ad- 

 jacent tissue. 



The Heart. In those who die from asphyxia the right cavities are 

 usually filled with fluid blood, while the left cavities are empty. But 

 when death is due to complex causes this may not be the case. 



The Abdominal Viscera may be congested in persons who die from 

 asphyxia. 



