obviously he could not have reached himself, then the presumption of homicide is justified. Evidence as to whether the hanging was a homicidal or suicidal act may frequently be obtained by a careful observation of the body and its surroundings. Attention should be especially directed to the following points. (i) If the body be hanging in a room, it should be noted whether the doors and windows are secured on the inside or outside. (ii) Whether the dress of the deceased be torn or disarranged. (iii) The attitude of the body. (iv) Marks of blood on the body and about the room. (v) Whether the hands present marks of struggling or wounding. (vi) Whether the rope correspond to the impression around the neck. Suicidal hanging.-Hanging is the commonest method of committing suicide. For death to occur from hanging it is not by any means necessary that the body should be entirely suspended or completely raised from the ground. Many cases of suicidal hanging have occurred in which the feet have been resting on the ground, and some even in which the body has been in the sitting posture. Marc quotes a number of such instances. In one of them a man committed suicide by hanging himself in a prison cell; he was found dead, nearly in a sitting position, his heels resting on the floor, and his body only a foot and a half above it. Grant relates the case of a man, forty-eight years of age, who committed suicide by hanging by tying the ends of a common cotton pocket-handkerchief together and suspending it from the handle of his bedroom door, which was only two feet nine inches from the floor; he then sat down on the floor with his back to the door, put his head through the loop, and bent forwards. The sitting posture was proved by flattening of the nates-rigor mortis having set in before the body was discovered-and by the post-mortem stains on the lower part of the back and legs. The mark on the neck was an inch and a half broad, and extended from below the chin obliquely upwards and backwards over the occiput, the texture of the cloth being plainly impressed on the skin. The Lancet, 1889. 1 Nobiling relates the case of a man, aged twenty-four, who also committed suicide by hanging with a pocket-handkerchief attached to the latch of a door, which was three feet seven inches from the floor. He adopted the kneeling posture, and was found dead with the knees bent and the toes touching the floor; the handkerchief was folded broadly, and left no mark behind. The mere fact of a body being found only partly suspended would tend to remove a suspicion of homicide, since it is probable that a murderer in suspending his victim would be careful to make the suspension complete. As previously mentioned, the hands and feet have been found tied in cases of undoubted suicidal hanging, so that the finding of a body suspended, and with the hands and feet tied, is not necessarily presumptive of homicide, even if the position of the knot be such as to make it appear almost impossible that it could have been self-tied. This is illustrated by the following case described by Filippi, Severi, and Montalti, a photograph of which was taken at the time, and is reproduced in Dixon Mann's Forensic Medicine.' 3 The nude dead body of a man hanging by the neck was found in his office; the right foot touched the floor, the left was slightly lifted from it by flexion of the knee. The wrists were tied together behind the back in such a way that the knot of the cord was in front of them, and rested on the back of the body. It was exceedingly improbable that the knot could have been tied as found, behind the back of the individual, if tied by himself, and as every other indication pointed to suicide, the question arose, could he have tied them in front and then passed his legs between the arms? The possibility of this feat was subsequently tested by enlisting the services of a young acrobat, who, with considerable difficulty, succeeded in passing his legs between his arms, with the wrists tied together in front. Aerztliches Intelligenzblatt. f. Baiern, 1884. 2 Manuale di Med. Legale, 1889. 3 Lib. cit., p. 201. TREATMENT OF THE APPARENTLY HANGED After respiration has ceased, the heart, as a rule, continues to beat for a few minutes, and it is during this period that the opportunity for resuscitating the apparently hanged occurs. The person should be at once cut down, the ligature loosened, and the face and chest exposed to a current of fresh air; artificial respiration should be immediately resorted to, the face and chest being meanwhile flicked with a wet towel, and ammonia held under the nostrils; if there are signs of much cerebral congestion, venesection may be advisable. recovery, convulsions and spasms of various kinds occasionally occur. After The following is an account of a remarkable case of the heart continuing to beat for a long time after death from judicial hanging; it is recorded by Tidy. Drs. Clarke, Ellis, and Shaw, of Boston, were the observers, and the man who suffered judicial hanging, aged twenty-eight, and very vigorous, weighed 130 pounds. A drop of from seven to eight feet was given, and there was not the least perceptible struggle or convulsion, death probably occurring from syncope; the vertebral column was not injured. The heart was heard to beat one hundred times a minute for seven minutes after suspension; after nine minutes the beats were ninety-eight per minute; two minutes later the beats could not be heard. Twenty-five minutes after the drop fell, the man was cut down, but the rope was not untied. No impulse or sound of the heart was perceptible. The face was purple, and the pupils were dilated, but the tongue did not protrude, nor were the eyeballs prominent. The rope had been attached just above the thyroid cartilage. Forty minutes after the execution the ligature was relaxed, and also the ropes binding the arms; after this, the face and body gradually became pale. An hour and a half after the execution, a regular pulsation was observed in the right subclavian vein, and on applying the ear to the chest the heart 'Legal Medicine, part ii. was heard beating eighty times per minute; only one sound was heard, regular and distinct, accompanied by a very slight impulse. The thorax was then opened, and the heart laid bare, but without stopping its movement; the right auricle contracted and dilated with energy and regularity. Half an hour later the pulsations of the heart were forty per minute, and an hour and three-quarters later they were only five per minute. Four hours and three-quarters after the time of the execution the spontaneous movements ceased. STRANGULATION Strangulation is that form of death from asphyxia in which the air-passage is occluded either by the constriction produced by a ligature around the neck, independently of suspension of the body, or by the employment of pressure with the fingers or otherwise on the larynx or trachea. Death results as a rule from the combined effects of asphyxia and of arrest of the cerebral circulation from compression of the great vessels of the neck. Sudden and violent compression of the windpipe by the hand probably produces unconsciousness sooner than if the constriction be made by a band. In some countries strangulation is the method employed for executing criminals; in Spain the customary method of execution is by the garrotte, a steel collar tightened by a screw, the criminal being seated and fastened to a post. In Turkey and some other Eastern countries, strangulation by the bow-string is a common mode of execution. When death from strangulation occurs from the use of a cord, the position of the ligature, as a rule, differs from that found in connection with death from hanging in a case of strangulation the ligature is generally wound horizontally around the neck; in a case of hanging the position of the ligature is usually oblique. The distinction between death from strangulation and death from hanging is important, since the former is nearly always the result of homicide, while the latter is generally due to suicide. The decision of the question as to whether death was caused by strangulation, or whether the ligature was placed round the neck after death from some other cause, must depend upon a careful observation of the appearances presented by the body at the necropsy. Post-mortem appearances of death from strangulation.— Any of the following conditions may be present, but they are not necessarily constant signs: escape I. The face is generally livid and swollen. The eyes are frequently wide open and prominent, and the pupils dilated. Ecchymoses may be present upon the face and eyes. The tongue may be swollen, dark-coloured, and somewhat protruded, and if great violence has been used to the neck, blood may have escaped from the mouth, nose, and even the ears; the of blood from the ears, however, is a rare occurrence, as it necessitates previous rupture of the tympanic membranes. None of these signs would be present if the constricting force had been applied to the neck after death; but, on the other hand, they cannot be depended upon as constant signs of death from strangulation. Swelling and lividity of the face and protrusion of the eyeballs may be present at the time of death, but may disappear after removal of the ligature or other constricting force. Protrusion of the eyeballs and tongue is more likely to occur in violent strangulation than in hanging; it should be remembered that, even after strangulation with violence, the face may be pale. Escape of urine and fæces, as in hanging, may occur. II. The mark on the neck produced by strangulation takes, as a rule, a more horizontal direction, and encircles the neck more completely than that produced by hanging; the mark is frequently found on the level of or below the thyroid cartilage. If a cord has been used, the mark is apt to be less deep than in hanging, and subcutaneous extravasation is not always found. The parts beneath may, however, show considerable infiltration of blood, and if excessive violence has been used, fractures of the hyoid bone, or even of the thyroid cartilage, |