Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/708

692 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 decapitated, 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 between the effects of wounds made before or after death, for accomplished 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 Gleditschia 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.