Dr. _Sloane_ sworn—* * As to my opinion of drowning it is plain, that if a great quantity of water be swallowed into the stomach by the gullet, it will not suffocate or drown the person: Drunkards who swallow a great deal of liquor, and those who are forced by the civil law to drink a great quantity of water, which in giving the question (as it is called) is poured into them by way of torture to make them confess crimes, have no suffocation or drowning happen to them: But on the other hand, when any quantity comes into the wind-pipe, so as it does hinder or intercept inspiration, or coming in of the air, which is necessary for inspiration or breathing, the person is suffocated. Such a small quantity will do, as sometimes in prescriptions, when people have been very weak, or forced to take medicines, I have observed some spoonfuls in that condition (if it went the wrong way) to have choaked or suffocated the person. I take drowning in a great measure to be thus, and when one struggles he may, to save himself from being choaked, swallow some quantity of water, yet that is not the cause of his death, but that which goes into the wind-pipe and lungs. Whether a person comes dead or alive into the water, I believe some quantity will go into the wind-pipe; and I believe without force after death, little will get into the stomach, because that it should, swallowing is necessary, which after death cannot be done. * * *
Baron _Hatsell_. But what do you say to this? if there had been water in the body, would it not have putrified the parts after it had lain six weeks.
Dr. _Sloane_. My Lord, I am apt to think it would have putrified the stomach less than the lungs, because the stomach is a part of the body that is contrived by nature partly to receive liquids; but the contrivance of the lungs is only for the receiving of air; they being of a spongy nature, the water might sink more into them than the stomach; but I believe it might putrify there too after some time. I am apt to think, that when a body is buried under ground, according to the depth of the grave, and difference of the weather and soil, the fermentation may be greater or lesser, and that according to the several kinds of meats or liquids in the stomach, the putrifaction will likewise vary so that it seems to me to be very uncertain.