A case, nearly parallel to the above, is that of _Lydia Alder_, who was tried in 1744 for the murder of her husband, whom she kicked on the groin; in consequence of which, having at the time an inguinal rupture, mortification came on, and he died. Verdict, _Manslaughter_. The circumstances attending the case of _Bartholomew Quain_ were, in some respects, different; he was tried and convicted for the murder of his wife, at the Assizes for the Isle of Ely, in 1790. It appeared in evidence, that a rupture of the spleen was produced by the violent kicks, of which the indictment stated that she had died. The jury, under the direction of the Chief Judge of Ely, found a special verdict, in order to take the opinion of the Court of King’s Bench upon the following question, whether the facts found by the jury amounted to murder, or only to manslaughter, when the Court was clearly of opinion that it was murder, because there did not appear to have been any provocation on the part of the deceased; and no man had a right, even to inflict chastisement, without a just provocation.
_Lacerations_, where the integuments are torn.—These differ from incised wounds not only in the circumstance of their being less disposed to heal by the first intention, but in the singular fact of their not bleeding to any extent; there are perhaps no facts, in the history of surgery, more extraordinary than those which have been recorded on the subject of whole limbs being torn away, without hemorrhage. The most remarkable of these is related by _Cheselden_, in his work on Anatomy, being the case of a miller, “whose arm, with the scapula, was torn off from his body, by a rope winding round it, the other end being fastened to the coggs of a mill; there was no hemorrhage, nor did any severe symptoms supervene, so that the wound was cured by superficial dressings only, the natural skin being left almost sufficient to cover it.” Analogous cases are recorded by _La Motte_, in his _Traité des Accouchemens_; by Mr. _Carmichael_, in the fifth volume of the _Edinburgh Medical Commentaries_; and by others, in the second volume of the _Mem. de l’Acad. de Chirurgie_. In appreciating the degree of danger attendant upon wounds of this description, the practitioner must not overlook the possible occurence of Tetanus.