SWIMMING. 451 



to other causes, which might have produced it; the presumption being, 

 that the person had been first killed, and then thrown into the water 

 for the purpose of averting suspicion. 



Another erroneous opinion, at one time prevalent, was, that if a 

 person be thrown alive into water he will sink; if dead, he will swim; 

 and, therefore, it is necessary, that some weight should be attached 

 to a body, when committed to the deep, to make it sink. All these 

 fallacious notions are dwelt upon in a case, full of interest to all 

 jurists, medical and others; that of Spencer Cowper, Esq., a member 

 of the English bar, and afterwards one of the judges of the Court of 

 Common Pleas, who, with three other individuals, was tried at Hertford 

 Assizes, in 1699, for the murder of Mrs. Sarah Stout. 1 The speeches 

 of the counsel, with the evidence of many of the medical witnesses, 

 sufficiently testify the low condition of medico-legal knowledge at that 

 period. 2 Mr. Jones the counsel for the prosecution affirmed, that 

 " when her (Mrs. Stout's) body came to be viewed, it was very much 

 wondered at ; for, in the first place, it is contrary to nature, that any 

 persons, that drown themselves, should float upon the water." " We 

 have sufficient evidence," he adds, "that it is a thing that never was: 

 if persons go alive into the water, then they sink; if dead, then they 

 swim." In confirmation of this strange opinion, two seamen were ex- 

 amined, one of whom deposed as follows: " In the year '89 or '90, in 

 Beechy fight, I saw several thrown overboard during the engagement, 

 but one particularly I took notice of, that was my friend and killed by 

 my side. I saw him swim for a considerable distance from the ship, 

 &c. Likewise in another engagement, where a man had both his legs 

 shot off and died instantly, they threw over his legs; though they sunk, 

 I saw his body float; likewise I have seen several men, who have died 

 natural deaths at sea; they have, when they have been dead, had a con- 

 siderable weight of ballast made fast to them and so were thrown over- 

 board ; because we hold it for a general rule that all men swim if they 

 be dead before they come into the water, and, on the contrary, I have 

 seen men when they have been drowned, that they have sunk as 

 soon as the breath is out of their bodies," &c. The weights are, 

 however, attached to the dead, when they are thrown into the sea, not 

 for the purpose of facilitating their descent, but to prevent them from 

 rising, when putrefaction renders them buoyant, by the disengagement 

 of air in the splanchnic cavities. On the same trial, Drs. Coatsworth, 

 Burnet, Nailor, and Woodhouse deposed, that when a person is drowned, 

 water will be taken into the stomach and lungs ; and as none was found 

 in the case of Mrs. Stout, they were of opinion, that she came to her 

 death by other means. 



From all that has been said, it would appear, that the great requisite 

 for safety to the inexperienced who may fall accidentally into the water 

 is a firm and sufficient conviction of the fact, that the living body natu- 

 rally floats, or that it can be easily made to do so. This conviction 

 being acquired, no more than a common share of presence of mind 



1 Hargrave's State Trials, vol. v. ; Beck's Medical Jurisprudence, 6th edit., ii. 205, 

 Albany, 1838. 



a Lives of the Lord Chancellors, by Lord Campbell, Amer. edit., iv. 240, Philad., 1848. 



