Page:Medical jurisprudence (IA medicaljurisprud03pari).pdf/29

violent transports of the mind may likewise occasion the return of any particular disease to which the patient had been formerly subject, as epilepsy, and other spasmodic diseases; they may likewise bring a chronic disease at once to a fatal crisis, as we have seen in the case related at page 29 of the 2d volume; the fact has been also well illustrated by Dr. Gordon Smith, in the case which occurred to a surgeon of his acquaintance in one of the midland counties, of which the following is an outline. "In the course of an altercation between a man and his wife, the woman died, and a clamour was raised that the husband had murdered her: an inquest being held, a verdict was returned against him, and he stood his trial at the following assizes; he was, however, acquitted, for it appeared in evidence that he had not even touched his wife during the quarrel. The deceased was a person of an extremely violent temper, and on opening her body, it was found that she had been labouring under suppuration of the liver, and that an abscess had burst into the cavity of the abdomen, in consequence of the agitation into which she had been thrown." Baron Larey describes the case of a person who had been violently wounded in the thorax by a sword in a duel; but the man was progressively recovering, when in the fourth month from the period of the injury, he died suddenly in consequence of a violent fit of anger; upon dissection, the heart and pericardium exhibited traces of inflammation. We should also learn, if possible, whether the deceased had been at the time of death in a state of intoxication: for in such a condition a comparatively slight injury may occasion death. The following case, related by Dr. Cheyne, in which Mr. Charles Bell was concerned, we quote from Mr. Shaw's excellent Manual