severity—there has been a period of incubation. In such cases the
food when swallowed has contained the bacteria, but the poisonous
toxin has been elaborated by them afterwards in the system during
the period preceding the onset of symptoms. In both varieties
of poisoning the symptoms are similar, consisting of gastro-intestinal
irritation—vomiting, purging and pain in the abdomen—together
with great prostration, fever, muscular twitching, disturbances
of vision, delirium and coma. The varieties of meat which have
most frequently given rise to poisoning (Botulismus) are pork, ham,
veal, sausages, brawn, various kinds of meat pies and potted meats.
Pig flesh appears to be specially liable to become infected. A point
of considerable interest, which has sometimes given rise to doubt
as to the poisonous character of meat in certain instances, is, that
the same food may be poisonous at one time and not at another.
Thus it may be harmless when freshly prepared, cause fatal effects
if eaten a day or two afterwards, and shortly after that again prove
perfectly innocuous. This is explained by the fact that the toxic
substances take some time to develop, and after development are still
further split up by the bacteria into other bodies of a harmless nature.
In some fish—e.g. Trachinus draco, or sea weaver—the poison is a physiological product of certain glands. In others the poison is not known, as in the family Scombridae, to which the disease Kakkè has been attributed. In the United Kingdom the poisonous effects produced by fish are due to bacterial agency after death, and instances have occurred from the eating of herrings, mackerel, dried salt codfish, caviare, tinned salmon and tinned sardines. Shellfish may cproduce poisonous effects from putrefactive changes or from the development in them (oysters and mussels) of ptomaines. Brieger discovered a ptomaine in poisonous mussels to which he gave the name mytilotoxin. It is now fully proved that oysters and mussels may become contaminated with the organism of typhoid fever if placed in specifically polluted water, and thus transmit the disease to human beings. Milk, as already stated, may be contaminated and convey the infection of scarlet fever and other diseases. It may also contain substances of bacterial origin, which are possibly the cause of infantile diarrhoea, and others, having a fatal effect upon adults. Cheese has frequently caused poisoning. Vaughan discovered a toxic substance in milk and cheese—tyrotoxicon—but there are other toxic substances of bacterial origin sometimes present in cheese to which poisonous effects have probably been due. Mushroom-poisoning results from the eating of poisonous fungi in mistake for the edible mushroom. The poisonous element in most cases is either muscarin contained in the fungus Amanita muscaria, or phallin in Amanita phalloides.
History of Forensic Medicine
The true origin of medical jurisprudence is of comparatively recent date, although traces of its principles may be perceived in remote times. Among the ancient Greeks the principles of medical science appear only to have been applied to legislation in certain questions relating to legitimacy. In the writings of Galen we find, however, remarks on the differences between the foetal and the adult lungs; he also treats of the legitimacy of seven months' children, and discusses feigned diseases. Turning to Rome, we find that the laws of the Twelve Tables fix three hundred days as the extreme duration of utero-gestation. It is doubtful whether the Roman law authorized medical inspections of dead bodies. In the code of Justinian we find De statu hominum; De poenis et manumissis; De sicariis; De inspiciendo ventre custodiendoque partu; De muliere quae peperit undecimo mense; De impotentia; De hermaphroditis—titles which show obvious traces of a recognized connexion between medicine and law. It was not, however, by the testimony of living, medical witnesses that such questions were to be settled, but on the authority of Hippocrates.
Medical jurisprudence, as a science, dates only from the 16th century. In 1507 the bishop of Bamberg introduced a penal code in which the necessity of medical evidence in certain cases was recognized; and in 1532 the emperor Charles V. persuaded the Diet of Ratisbon to adopt a uniform code of German penal jurisprudence, in which the civil magistrate was enjoined in all cases of doubt or difficulty to obtain the evidence of medical witnesses,—as in cases of personal injuries, infanticide, pretended pregnancy, simulated diseases, and poisoning. The true dawn of forensic medicine dates, however, from the publication in 1553 of the Constitutio criminalis carolina in Germany. A few years later Weiher, a physician, having undertaken to prove that witches and demoniacs are, in fact, persons subject to hypochondriasis and hysteria, and should not be punished, aroused popular indignation, and was with difficulty rescued from the flames by his patron, William duke of Cleves.
At the close of the 16th century Ambrose Paré wrote on monsters, on simulated diseases, and on the art of drawing up medico-legal reports; Pineau also published his treatise on virginity and defloration. About the same time as these stimuli to the study of forensic medicine were being made known in Paris, the first systematic treatise on the science appeared in Sicily in the form of a treatise De relationibus medicorum by Fidele. Paulo Zacchia, the illustrious Roman medical jurist, moreover, published from 1621 to 1635 a work entitled Quaestiones medico-legales, which marks a new era in the history of the science—a work which displays an immense amount of learning and sagacity in an age when chemistry was in its infancy, and physiology very imperfectly understood. The discovery of the circulation of the blood by Harvey soon followed, and gave a new impetus to the study of those branches of forensic medicine having direct relations to physiology; and to Harvey we owe the idea how to apply Galen’s observations on the differences between the foetal and the adult lungs to the elucidation of cases of supposed infanticide. About this time, too, Sebiz published two treatises, on the signs of virginity and on the examination of wounds respectively. In the former he contended that the hymen was the real mark of virginity; but this was denied by Augenio and Gassendi. In 1663 Thomas Bartholin investigated the period of human uterine gestation, a subject which had engaged the attention of Aristotle. He also proposed the “hydrostatic test” for the determination of live-birth—a test still in use, and applied by observing whether the lungs of an infant float or sink in water. J. Swammerdam explained the rationale of the process in 1677; but it was not till 1682 that it was first practically applied by Jan Schreyer.
Germany, ever the leader in questions of forensic medicine, introduced the first public lectures on medical jurisprudence. Michaelis gave the first course about the middle of the 17th century in the university of Leipzig; and these were followed by the lectures of Bohn, who also published De renunciatione vulnerum; cui accesserunt dissertationes binae de partu enecato, et an quis vivus mortuusve aquis submersus, strangulatus, aut vulneratus fuerit, and De officiis medici duplicis, clinici et forensis. Welsch and Amman wrote on the fatality of wounds, and Licetus on monsters.
From the time of Ambrose Paré the mode of conducting investigations in forensic medicine had attracted attention in France; and in 1603 Henry IV. authorized his physician to appoint persons skilled in medicine and surgery to make medico-legal inspections and reports in all cities and royal jurisdictions; in 1692, difficulties having arisen, Louis XIV. created hereditary royal physicians and surgeons for the performance of like duties. These, having become a corrupt and venal body, were suppressed in 1790. The only works on forensic medicine which appeared in France during the 17th century, however, were Gendry’s Sur les moyens de bien rapporter à justice and Blégny’s Doctrine des rapports en chirurgie. At the beginning of the 18th century the latter was superseded as a text-book by Devaux’s L’Art de faire des rapports en chirurgie. Valentini followed with two works, which were finally incorporated in his Corpus juris medico-legale which appeared in 1722. This work is a vast storehouse of medico-legal information, and a summary of the knowledge of the time.
Professorships for teaching the subject were founded in the German universities early in the 18th century, and numerous treatises on forensic medicine were published. Teichmeyer’s Institutiones medicinae legalis long formed the text-book of the subject; and Alberti, professor of legal medicine at Halle, in his Systema gave to the world a most complete and laborious treatise on the science. His industrious collection of facts renders his works a precious mine of information. Indeed towards the close of the 18th century the Germans were almost the only cultivators of legal medicine. But in France the celebrated case of Villeblanche attracted attention to the subject, and called forth Louis, who in a memoir on utero-gestation attacked with powerful arguments the pretended instances of protracted pregnancy, and paved the way for the adoption in the Code Napoléon of
