692 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



some of his blood upon it. If there is relationship, the blood will 

 penetrate the bone, otherwise it will not. This kind of test may be 

 compared with the ancient custom of barbarous people based upon the 

 belief that the blood of relatives poured into the same vessel will mix, 

 while that of strangers will remain separate. A like custom also is 

 used in China to prove in court contested relationships ; but the officer 

 must be particularly careful that no salt or vinegar is put into the 

 vessel, lest those substances should promote a mixture of the blood. 

 It is believed to have been shown by experiment that men slain with 

 a knife die with the mouth and eyes open and the hands closed, and 

 that their skin and muscles are drawn up. If the victim has been de- 

 capitated, the muscles are tense, the skin is flabby, and the shoulders 

 are drawn up. These features are not found when the decapitation 

 has taken place after death. It is very important to discriminate be- 

 tween the effects of wounds made before or after death, for accom- 

 plished murderers seek to give their crime the appearance of a suicide. 



The general aspect of the body is relied upon to give an evident 

 indication of the state of mind in which a suicide was committed. If 

 the teeth are clinched and the eyes are partly open, the act was done 

 in a fit of violent passion ; if the eyes are shut, the mouth open, and 

 the teeth not clinched, the case was one of suppressed anger. If fear 

 of punishment induced the suicide, the eyes and the mouth will be 

 closed, and the body will have an air of repose, " for the unfortunate 

 one regarded death as the end of his journey, as the term of rest that 

 should disengage him from the responsibilities of life." The hands 

 of a suicide continue soft for some time, and after a day or two the skin 

 draws up — symptoms that are not observed in cases of murder. 



In case of strangulation, which is very frequent, it is the officer's 

 duty to inform himself with especial particularity respecting the exact 

 position of the body, the signs on the neck, the existence or absence of 

 the mark of the rope, the expression of the face, and a thousand other 

 details. 



The directions to be observed in cases of drowning are, on the 

 whole, sensible, but the habit of generalizing here also leads to some 

 strange conclusions. Thus, it has been discovered that bodies require a 

 longer time to come to the surface of the water in the winter and the 

 beginning of the spring than at other seasons. 



With no aid from dissection, the inquests in cases of poison are, of 

 course, very incomplete. The most usual test is to introduce into the 

 mouth a silver needle that has been dipped in a decoction of Gle- 

 ditschia sinensis. If, after a certain time, the needle receives a 

 blackish tint that resists washing, poisoning is concluded to have been 

 the cause of death. Sometimes a handful of rice is put into the mouth 

 of the deceased and then given to a fowl, and the effect upon the bird 

 of eating it is noticed. — Translated for the Popular Science Monthly 

 from the Revue Scientifique. 



