_How soon is the deceased supposed to have died, after the alleged cause of his dissolution._—This is a very important question, for by learning the length of the interval between the attack and the death, we shall at once be enabled to accept as probable, or reject as impossible, the accounts given by the friends and neighbours. Thus, poisons, in general, require some time for their operation. Apoplexy does not generally destroy life under several hours[7].
THE PERSON IS FOUND DEAD, AND THE HISTORY OF HIS DISSOLUTION IS UNKNOWN.
The deep obscurity in which this case is necessarily involved, can alone be dissipated by the concentrated light of circumstantial evidence, derived from the inspection of the dead body, in the exact situation and posture in which it was found, and that of the surrounding objects; from the information afforded by competent witnesses, respecting the previous history of the individual in question; and, lastly, from anatomical dissection.
In conducting such an inquiry the most trifling incidents connected with the deceased should not pass unheeded, for however unimportant they may at first, individually, appear, we shall often find that in combination they will afford the principal data for the solution of our problem. With how many examples will the history of crime present us where the more minute circumstances have alone furnished the “damning proofs” of guilt? Their apparent insignificance in such cases would seem to exempt them even from the usual precautions of concealment, and more especially from those artful measures by which the designing assassin seeks to cast an impenetrable veil over the more direct evidences of his crime.
1. _Circumstances to be learnt by the Inspection of the Body._
That the inspection of the body could furnish the satisfactory means of discovering the cause of its death, is an opinion which has been very naturally entertained from the earliest ages; although it is easy to perceive that the extent and just value of the indications, which such a practice is capable of affording, could never have been appreciated until the more advanced periods of physiological knowledge.
As the ancients exposed their sick on the high roads, for the advantage of receiving from the casual passenger his opinion and experience respecting the particular malady under which they laboured, so did they expose the bodies of persons, supposed to have been murdered, in order that each spectator might candidly observe their appearance, and freely inquire into the circumstances which attended their decease; thus, as we are informed by _Pliny_, was the body of _Genucius_, a tribune of the Roman people, on his being found dead in bed, brought forth to the assembled multitude, who, unable to discover any external marks of violence, pronounced his death to have been a visitation of the gods; and we learn from _Tacitus_, that the remains of _Germanicus_, who was poisoned by _Piso_, were exposed in the market place of Antioch; thus too, in conformity with ancient custom, was the bleeding corpse of _Julius Cæsar_ exposed to public gaze and animadversion. The decisions, however, which such a custom was intended to facilitate, were generally perverted by the delusions of credulity and superstition. Among the more prominent instances of the latter source of fallacy, we may notice a belief that has extended even into later days—that upon the presence of the murderer the wounds of his victim will bleed afresh!