Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology | Page 6

dilute nitric acid, and testing with iodide of potassium for lead, and hydrochloric acid for silver. The hair may be bleached with chlorine or peroxide of hydrogen, detected by letting the hair grow and by its unnatural feeling and the irregularity of the bleaching.
Finger-print impressions are the most trustworthy of all means of identification. Such a print is obtained by rubbing the pulp of the finger in lampblack, and then impressing it on a glazed card. The impression reveals the fine lines which exist at the tips of the fingers. The arrangement of these lines is special to each person, and cannot be changed. Hence this method is employed by the police in the identification of prisoners.
In the determination of cases of doubtful sex in the living, the following points should be noticed: the size of the penis or clitoris, and whether perforate or not, the form of the prepuce, the presence or absence of nymph? and of testicles or ovaries. Openings must be carefully sounded as to their communication with bladder or uterus. After puberty, inquiry should be made as to menstrual or vicarious discharges, the general development of the body, the growth of hair, the tone of voice, and the behaviour of the individual towards either sex.
With regard to the identification of the dead in cases of death by accident or violence, the medical man's assistance may be called. The sex of the skeleton, if that only be found, may be judged from the bones of the female generally being smaller and more slender than those of the male, by the female thorax being deeper, the costal cartilages longer, the ilia more expanded, the sacrum flatter and broader, the coccyx movable and turned back, the tuberosities of the ischia wider apart, the pubes shallow, and the whole pelvis shallower and with larger outlets. But of all these signs the only one of any real value is the roundness of the pubic arch in the female, as compared with the pointed arch in the male. Before puberty the sex cannot be determined from an examination of the bones.
Age may be calculated from the presence, nature and number of the erupted teeth; from the cartilages of the ribs, which gradually ossify as age advances; from the angle formed by the ramus of the lower jaw with its body (obtuse in infancy, a right angle in the adult, and again obtuse in the aged from loss of the teeth); and in the young from the condition of the epiphyses with regard to their attachment to their respective shafts.
To determine stature, the whole skeleton should be laid out and measured, 1-1/2 to 2 inches being allowed for the soft parts.

IV.--EXAMINATION OF PERSONS FOUND DEAD
When a medical man is called to a case of sudden death, he should carefully note anything likely to throw any light on the cause of death. He should notice the place where the body was found, the position and attitude of the body, the soil or surface on which the body lies, the position of surrounding objects, and the condition of the clothes. He should also notice if there are any signs of a struggle having taken place, if the hands are clenched, if the face is distorted, if there has been foaming at the mouth, and if urine or f?ces have been passed involuntarily. Urine may be drawn off with a catheter and tested for albumin and sugar.
If required to make a post-mortem examination, every cavity and important organ of the body must be carefully and minutely examined, the seat of injury being inspected first.

V.--MODES OF SUDDEN DEATH
There are three modes in which death may occur: (1) Syncope; (2) asphyxia; (3) coma.
1. =Syncope= is death beginning at the heart--in other words, failure of circulation. It may arise from--(1) An?mia, or deficiency of blood due to h?morrhage, such as occurs in injuries, or from bleeding from the lungs, stomach, uterus, or other internal organs. (2) Asthenia, or failure of the heart's action, met with in starvation, in exhausting diseases, such as phthisis, cancer, pernicious an?mia, and Bright's disease, and in some cases of poisoning--for example, aconite.
The symptoms of syncope are faintness, giddiness, pallor, slow, weak, and irregular pulse, sighing respiration, insensibility, dilated pupils, and convulsions.
Post mortem the heart is found empty and contracted. When, however, there is sudden stoppage of the heart, the right and left cavities contain blood in the normal quantities, and blood is found in the ven? cav? and in the arterial trunks. There is no engorgement of either lungs or brain.
2. =Asphyxia=, or death beginning at the lungs, may be due to obstruction of the air-passages from foreign bodies in the larynx, drowning, suffocation, strangling, and hanging; from injury to the cervical cord; effusion into the pleur?, with consequent pressure on the lungs; embolism