The objects of this inquiry may be conveniently arranged under four divisions, viz.
1. To ascertain whether the child was born alive?
2. If born alive, whether its death was the result of natural causes; of wilful murder; or of negligence and abandonment?
3. If its death arose from the want of due care, whether such negligence should be regarded as criminal or accidental?
4. Whether the woman accused presents on examination, such appearances as correspond with her supposed relations to the child?
Upon each of these heads we shall offer such observations
as appear to us to be essential to ensure
the safe judgment of the practitioner. Several of the
questions, involved in the inquiry, have already engaged
our attention in the first volume of the present
work, under the history of conception; while the industry
with which the numerous authorities on the
subject of infanticide, and its scientific relations,
have been lately collated by Dr. Hutchinson,[1] in
England, and Professor Capuron, in France, will
justify us in giving to this branch of our work the character
of a commentary, rather than that of a regular
history.
On the discovery of the body of a newly-born infant, it becomes our first duty to ascertain whether the spark of life be entirely extinct; if the sensible proofs of absolute death should be absent, no time is
- ↑ A dissertation on Infanticide, in its relations to Physiology and Jurisprudence, by W. Hutchinson, M.D. Edit. 2, London 1821.
