The single question presented by this record is whether in a civil action for an injury to the person, the court, on application of the defendant, and in advance of the trial may order the plaintiff without his or her consent, to submit to a surgical examination as to the extent of the injury sued for. We concur with the circuit court in holding that it had no legal right or power to make and enforce such an order. No right is held more sacred, or is more carefully guarded by the common law, than the right of every individual to the possession and control of his own person, free from all restraint or interference of others, unless by clear and unquestionable authority of law. As well said by Judge Cooley: 'The right to one's person may be said to be a right of complete immunity; to be let alone.' Cooley, Torts, 29. For instance, not only wearing apparel, but a watch or a jewel, worn on the person, is, for the time being, privileged from being taken under distress for rent, or attachment on mesne process or execution for debt, or writ of replevin. 3 Bl. Comm. 8; Sunbolf v. Alford, 3 Mees, & W. 248, 253, 254; Mack v. Parks, 8 Gray, 517; Maxham v. Day, 16 Gray, 213. The inviolability of the person is as much invaded by a compulsory stripping and exposure as by a blow. To compel any one, and especially a woman, to lay bare the body, or to submit it to the touch of a stranger, without lawful authority, is an indignity, an assault, and a trespass; and no order of process, commanding such an exposure or submission, was ever known to the common law in the administration of justice between individuals, ecep t in a very small number of cases, based upon special reasons, and upon ancient practice, coming down from ruder ages, now mostly obsolete in England, and never, so far as we are a ware, introduced into this country. In former times, the English courts of common law might, if they saw fit, try by inspection or examination, without the aid of a jury, the question of the infancy or of the identity of a party; or, on an appeal of mayhem, the issue of mayhem or no mayhem; and, in an action of trespass for mayhem, or for an atrocious battery, might after a verdict for the plaintiff, and on his motion, and upon their own inspection of the wound, super visum vulneris, increase the damages at their discretion. In each of those exceptional cases, as Blackstone tells us, 'it is not thought necessary to summon a jury to decide it,' because 'the fact, from its nature, must be evident to the court, either from ocular demonstration or other irrefragable proof;' and therefore, 'the law departs from its usual resort, the verdict of twelve men and relies on the judgment of the court alone.' The inspection was not had for the purpose of submitting the result to the jury, but the question was thought too easy of decision to need submission to a jury at all. 3 Bl. Comm. 331-333. The authority of courts of divorce, in determining a question of impotence as affecting the validity of a marriage, to order an inspection by surgeons of the person of either party, rests upon the interest which the public, as well as the parties, have in the question of upholding or dissolving the marriage state, and upon the necessity of such evidence to enable the court to exercise its jurisdiction, and is derived from the civil and canon law, as administered in spiritual and ecclesiastical courts, not proceeding in any respect according to the course of the common law. Briggs v. Morgan 2 Hagg. Coust. 324, 3 Phillim. Ecc. 325; Devanbagh v. Devanbagh, 5 Paige, 554; Le Barron v. Le Barron 35 Vt. 365. The writ de ventre inspiciendo, to ascertain whether a woman convicted of a capital crime was quick with child, was allowed by the common law, in order to guard against the taking of the life of an unborn child for the crime of the mother.