Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/24

 10 NOTES AND QUERIES. CHINESE MEDICINE. (9th S. iii. 408.) IN reference to this procedure, which seems to be peculiar to the Celestial Empire, Sir John Davies, in his book on ' China,' vol. ii. p. 229 (London, John Murray, 1857), writes as follows :— "The Chinese occasionally practise a species of forensic medicine, to ascertain from external in- dications the mode in which any person came by his death. A lad had one day been found dead in a house not far from the factories at Canton, and, as it was suspected that violence had occasioned his death, the magistrate instituted his court near to the spot. The several parties implicated or sus- pected were brought before him and examined, some of them with torture. The body being ex- tended upon boards, a quantity of mash, composed of some grain in a boiling hot state, was laid over it. After a time this was removed, and from the appearance of the skin and muscles they appeared to form a judgment as to the cause of the in- dividual's death. It is needless to remark in how very few cases this superficial mode of ex- amination could be of any use in ascertaining the multiform ways in which life may be extinguished." A complete account of the process, drawn from the official book entitled Si-yuen,1 that is, ' The Washing of the Pit,' is given in Pere Hue's ' Empire Chinois,' vol. i. chap, vii., fifth edition (Paris, 1879). As it covers several pages, I cannot give more than a summary : "The 'Si-yueu' is a work of legal medicine, famous throughout China, a copy of which should be in the lianas of every magistrate, for, whenever a dead body is found, it is the duty of the official of the district to go and inspect it and state whether the death has been natural or the result of suicide or murder. This is what the book directs to be done in order to discover the traces of blows and wounds on corpses, even when decomposition has set in. The bodyiswashed with vinegar and then exposed to the steam of the wine, which comes out of a deep pit. It is this process which has given to the book of legal medicine the name of ' Si-yuen.' or ' Wash- ing of the Pit.' Ground of a dry and clayey nature should as far as possible be chosen for digging the pit, which should be five or six feet in length, three in width, and as many in depth. It is then filled with branches and brushwood, and the fire is kept up until the earth at the bottom and sides is made almost white with heat. The embers are next cleared out, and a large quantity of rice wine is poured in. Over the opening of the pit, a wicker- work hurdle is placed on which the corpse is stretched; then the whole is arched over with sheets of canvas, in order that the steam from the wine may act on every part of the body. After the lapse of two hours, all marks of blows and wounds show quite plainly. The ' Si-yuen ' assures us that the same operation may be equally applied to the bones alone, which will show the same results. The book asserts that if the blows have been of a nature to cause death, the marks must appear on the bones. The magistrates are bound to perform this operation whenever the least suspicion arises as to a person's death. They are even obliged to get the bodies exhumed and carefully examine them, though the effluvia arising therefrom may endanger their lives, ' for,' says the book of legal medicine, ' the interest of society demands it, and it is not less glorious to face death in order to protect one's fellow-citizens from the weapon of assassins than from that of open enemies : he who has not the courage to do so is no magistrate, and ought to give up his office."' This gruesome book reviews all imaginable ways of causing death, and explains the method of discovering them on the corpses : "Take the article 'The Strangled': the author distinguishes the strangled when hanging, on the knees, lying down, with a running or a turning knot, and carefully describes all the marks which should be found on the body and which will show whether the person has strangled himself or not. With regard to ' The Drowned,' he says that their corpses are very different from those that have been thrown into the water after being killed; the former have the belly much extended, the hair cling- ing to the head, foam at the mouth, feet and hands stiff, the soles of the feet extremely white : none of these signs is found in those thrown into the water after having been stifled, poisoned, or killed in any other way. As it often happens in China that a murderer endeavours to hide his crime by causing a fire, the ' Si-yueii,' in the chapter of' The Burned, shows the magistrate how he is to tell, by an in- spection of the corpse, whether the person was killed before the conflagration or suffocated by the fire; among other things, it says that in the former case neither ashes nor traces of fire are found in the mouth or nose, whereas they are always found in the latter. The last chapter discusses the various kinds of poisons and their tests." Such is the interesting account of a very remarkable book given by Pere Hue in his admirable work on China. With his con- clusion every one must agree :— " However skilful and watchful the magistrates may be considered, one cannot help thinking that these practices of legal medicine must be generally very inadequate, and cannot serve as a substitute for a post-mortem examination, from which the Chinese are debarred by ancient and inveterate prejudices." JOHN T. CURRY. The Chinese procedure for determination of doubtful forensic cases, concerning which MR. FOWKE makes an inquiry, is contained in an empiric work styled ' Si-yuen-luh,' or 'Records to Clarify Innocence,' "very cele- brated in China, and which should be in the hands of all magistrates." An excellent though brief account of this work is given in Hue's ' Chinese Empire' (Eng. trans., 1855, vol. i. p. 278 sqq.), with only this error, that the title of the book is mistranslated by the Abbe" as ' To Wash the Pit.1 So far as I know, there are two perfect copies of the work in the British Museum ; and its translation into