crepitating; a bloody fluid will at the same time exude.
That a change in the character of the pulmonary structure so important as that just described should have attracted the notice of the physiologist, and been eagerly seized, as evidence in proof of the infant having respired, and therefore been born alive, cannot be a matter of surprise; and we accordingly find that the hydrostatic test long enjoyed the unreserved confidence of the profession and the public. Whenever an infant was found dead, under circumstances of doubt and suspicion, its lungs were removed from the body, and immersed in water; if they sank, the subject of the experiment was immediately declared to have been still-born. If, on the contrary, they floated, it was concluded without farther enquiry, that the infant had lived after its birth. The aphorism of Baglivi may be received as an expression of the general feeling so long entertained upon this subject. "Pulmones fœtus mortui in utero matris, si extrahantur, et in aqua ponantur, petunt fundum; mortui vero extra uterum et aqua injecti innatent in ea. Quod signum ad infanticidia detegenda est evidentissimum."[1] The number of innocent females who may have been thus sacrificed through a physiological conceit, is a circumstance that must excite the most awful reflection,[2] It is now well ascertained, and as generally admitted, that the validity of the hydrostatic test, as usually applied, must afford very unquestionable indications. Bohn,[3] Hoffman,[4] and Heister,ə
- ↑ Baglivi. Op. Omnia, p. 299.
- ↑ Margaret Dickson, whose remarkable resuscitation after execution We have already noticed (vol. ii, p. 91) was convicted on the evidence of a medical person, who deposed that the lungs of the child swam in water.
- ↑ De. Offic. Med. de Vulner. renunciat.
- ↑ Op. Patholog. Pract. t.i.
