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143
Bums -------- 1
Scalds 1
Drowning ------ 1
Run over by a cart- - - - - -1
Kicked by a horse - - - - - - 1
Falls under various circumstances - - 10
Blow on head: no evidence how caused - 2
Hemorrhage from navel - - - 1
Rupture of stomach - - - - 1
Suicide : By hanging - - - - 2
By poison- - -- 5
By cut-throat - - - - 3
By pistol shot - 1
Wilful Murder, of newly-born infant - 1
The suicidal deaths comprise eight of males and three of
females. The poisons employed were oxalic acid in three cases,
prussic acid and corrosive sublimate in one each.
Among the deaths described as "sudden," there were, as usual,
many from ordinary and curable visceral diseases, and it is
impossible to resist the conviction that the neglect to obtain
medical assistance for the deceased was culpable, inasmuch as the
illnesses must often have extended over many days, and been
attended with obvious symptoms of a more or less serious and
painful nature. The mere finding of the "cause of death" in such
cases, seems scarcely to satisfy the requirements of justice, considering
that the death of any person—but particularly of one very
young or very aged—from such diseases as pneumonia, bronchitis,
&c., when there has been no medical attendance, raises a
presumption of neglect which would justify a verdict of
"manslaughter," just as much as in the case of the "peculiar
people," who, whilst treating their sick with care in other
respects, refuse, on so-called "conscientious" grounds, to employ
medical assistance, and who, as a consequence of such refusal,
death having ensued, have on several occasions been found guilty
of manslaughter.