THE LESIONS IN CERTAIN FORMS OF DEATH FROM VIOLENCE. 47 



The Stomach. The fluid in which the person was drowned, sometimes 

 mixed with sand, weeds, etc. , may be swallowed during the act of drown- 

 ing. Sand may wash for a short distance into the oesophagus after 

 death, in bodies washing about the bottom. 



In persons dying in the water from syncope, shock, etc., we may find 

 no lesions. When the death is partly due to asphyxia and partly to other 

 causes, the lesions may vary in numerous ways, which need not be de- 

 scribed here. 



In important cases of doubtful drowning it is desirable carefully to 

 collect and save some of the fluid from the lungs and stomach for micro - 

 chemical examination, since the identification of these fluids with those 

 in which the person was presumably drowned will often give certainty 

 to an otherwise doubtful case. 



For the detailed consideration of the anatomical diagnosis of drown- 

 ing, the changes which bodies dead from drowning undergo from decom- 

 position, and the factors bearing on the question of suicide, homicide, 

 etc., we refer to works on medical jurisprudence. 



DEATH FROM ELECTRICITY. 



Lightning. Persons who are struck by lightning may die instantly ; 

 or may continue for several hours comatose or delirious, and then either 

 die or recover ; or they may die after some time from the effects of the 

 burns and injuries received. 



The post-mortem appearances are very variable. Sometimes there 

 are no marks of external violence or internal lesions. Sometimes the 

 clothes are burnt and torn, while the skin beneath them is unchanged. 

 Usually there are marks of contusion and laceration, or ecchymoses, or 

 lacerated, punctured wounds, or fractures of the bones, or superficial or 

 deep burns. The track of the electric current may sometimes be marked 

 by dark -red arborescent streaks on the skin. Fractures are rare. 



The internal viscera may be lacerated and disorganized from lightning. 



Artificial Electrical Currents. In death from powerful artificial elec- 

 trical currents, either by accident, as in linemen and others, or in elec- 

 trical executions, there may be local burnings of varying degree where 

 the wires or electrodes come in contact with the skin. The clothes may 

 be pierced with holes at the point of exit of the current. Internally 

 there appear to be no marked or characteristic lesions, either gross or 

 microscopical, in this form of death. Van Giesou and others have ob- 

 served the occasional, but not constant, occurrence of small haemorrhages 

 in the floor of the fourth ventricle, the significance of which is doubtful. 

 Other petechial spots have been observed beneath the serous surfaces of 

 the endocardium, pericardium, and pleura, and on the spleen. ' 



1 Van Gieson, " A Keport of the Gross and Microscopical Examination of Six Cases 

 of Death by Strong Electrical Currents." New York Medical Journal, May 7th and 

 14th, 1892. Cunningham, "The Cause of Death from Industrial Electric Currents." 

 .New York Medical Journal, vol. Ixx., pp. 581 and 615, 1899. Jelliffe, Peterson and 

 Haines' "Text-book of Legal Medicine," p. 245. 



