216 
Note on the Diagnosis of 
them to he; and since the contrivers of this dog story apparently 
forgot that the pantaloons were not standing up in the boots, and 
consequently had no chance to become sprinkled along with them, 
their ingenious theory failed to gain credence with the jury, who 
brought in a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree. 
I venture to predict that from Dr. Woodward's paper and this 
note to my own essays will spring, as from the dragon's teeth of 
ancient fable, a host of bloody dog tales to account for suspicious 
stains on the clothing, &c., of murderers, until even attorneys for 
the defence become themselves ashamed to put forward this worn- 
out plea. 
Sometimes, as in a recent case wherein I was engaged,* the 
large amount of blood might enable us to expose some ingenious 
falsehood, attributing the tell-tale spots to one of the smaller 
animals, as, for instance, the rat, mouse, rabbit, or even lapdog. 
The other criticism of Dr. Woodward to which I wish to advert 
is his remark that he suspects I have underrated the amount of 
contraction which the dried and remoistened corpuscles undergo, 
estimated by Carl Schmidt at about 48 per cent, of their diameter. 
Numerous experiments made to settle this point lead me to remark 
that I stand ready to prove the greater accuracy of my measure- 
ments of the least deformed corpuscles examined by my method 
in the thin films of blood stains, but not in masses of dried blood 
clot. When the blood forms a stratum of some thickness, its cor- 
puscles during desiccation generally become crenated, and thereby 
diminish in diameter to two-thirds or less of their original size. It 
seems probable that some at least of the measurements of Carl 
Schmidt and others have been made upon red disks in this con- 
tracted state. 
I wish to insist most emphatically that all my statements in 
regard to the diagnosis of blood stains are applicable to " stains " 
only, and not to masses of dried blood clot. 
In this conviction I reply to the chief point made by my critic 
in the London * Medical Kecord,' Sept. 9, 1874, that bearing in 
mind this possibility of the disks diminishing in size by crenation, 
I would — in the extraordinary and, I believe, as yet unreported 
case where a man might be convicted if a given stain were pro- 
nounced horse's blood, and acquitted if it were human blood 
instead of the contrary — positively decline to say it was the blood 
of a horse, even if the corpuscles ranged from to ^^^Vo of an 
inch in diameter. 
Two questions very properly suggested or urged by the learned 
counsel in the Lindsay case above referred to, during cross- 
* Trial of Owen Lindsay for the murder of F. A. Colvin. See Syracuse 
' Daily Standard/ Jan. 30, 1875. 
