Page:Medical jurisprudence (IA medicaljurisprud03pari).pdf/39

 essential to the ends of justice in questions of survivorship; the following curious case, cited by Dr. Male, will not only serve to substantiate this assertion, but it will, at the same time, afford a triumphant instance of the application of chemical science in promoting the due administration of the laws. It is well known that when dead animal fibre is exposed, for a certain period, to the action of a current of water, it becomes converted into a fatty substance, resembling spermaceti, and known to chemists under the name of adipocire. The period of time required to effect this change has been the subject of dispute. At the Lent assizes held at Warwick, in the year 1805, a cause was tried, in which a gentleman, who was insolvent, left his own house with the intention, as it was presumed from his preceding conduct and conversation, of destroying himself. Five weeks and four days after that period, his body was found floating down a river. The face was disfigured by putrefaction, and the hair separated from the scalp by the slightest pull; but the other parts of the body were firm and white, without any putrefactive appearance. The clothes were unaltered, but the linen was exceedingly rotten. On examining the body, it was found that several parts of it were converted into adipocire. A commission of bankruptcy having been taken out against the deceased a few days after he had left his home, it became a question of great importance to the interests of his family, to ascertain whether he was living at that period. From the changes which the body had sustained, it was presumed that he had drowned himself the day he left home; and to corroborate