Bloodletting

“ We may just mention that as a general rule he approves of bleeding after any accident. He disapproves of bleeding both at the onset and the crisis of a disease. In constitutions requiring bloodletting he holds that spring is the best season for it. Even in cases in which there is a deficiency of blood, but there is congestion in some particular part, he permits blood to be abstracted, in order to produce revulsion, the patient’s strength being recruited afterwards by a nourishing diet. ”

“ If the strength admit of bloodletting, we are to abstract blood from the arm immediately and freely; but, if the patient be delirious and will not present his arm, or if there be apprehension of hemorrhage after the bleeding from the patient tearing his arm during the agitation of his delirium, we must open the straight vein in the forehead, and take away at once a sufficient quantity of blood. We are to use clysters [361] and injections of oil, or rose-oil with the juice of ptisan. When watchfulness prevails, we anoint the head with rose-oil, or with vinegar and rose-oil ”

“ Doctor examines body--finds no evidence of violence, except slight discoloured mark on one side of neck--opinion of inspector that something, chain probably, has been wrenched off by assassin--is also of opinion that death could not have been thus caused. Doctor says death is caused by blood-poisoning--evidence being, swollen condition of body, protruding tongue, discolouration of skin--thinks it must be poison--makes minute examination--finds on neck slight scratch just on jugular vein, greatly inflamed--is of opinion that assassin has wounded victim in neck with poisoned dagger or knife. ”

“ Bleeding as a mutilation has an origin akin to the origins of other mutilations. Did we not find that some uncivilized tribes, as the Samoyeds, drink the warm blood of animals—did we not find among existing cannibals, such as the Feejeeans, proofs that savages drink the blood of still-living human victims—it would seem incredible that from taking the blood of a vanquished enemy was derived the ceremony of offering blood to a ghost, and to a god. ”

“ It will not be found to hold touch upon diligent observation and strict inquiry, that all dead bodies do bleed fresh and rosie blood, especially after the third or fourth day, or after some weeks, as divers of the instances above given do manifestly prove; and therefore is an accident incident to some dead bodies and not to all. And it will as far fail, that wounded bodies, that have been slain in the wars, after the natural heat be gone, will upon motion bleed any fresh or crimson blood at all ”

“ It is not often that there is more than one wound—a charging boar rarely returns to the attack once his impetus [86] has carried him clear of his enemies—and the consequences of this depend largely upon its location. If a thigh is cut deeply enough the wounded man will bleed to death; and if the slash is across the abdomen, though he may linger, it is rarely indeed that blood-poisoning fails ultimately to claim him for a victim. ”

“ Should the question come up as to whether a gunshot wound had been inflicted before or after death, we may remember the principal characteristics of a wound inflicted during life, which are more or less eversion, more or less hemorrhage with diffusion of blood into the tissues, and the presence of clots. In a wound made after death little or no blood is effused, unless it come from some vessel very near the surface, in which case it will be venous in character and will not coagulate as does that which is poured out of a wound in the living. ”

“ The poor wretch saw the instruments handed one by one by the assistant, and heard the surgeon’s calm directions and his remarks on the case. The barbarous practice of arresting bleeding by the application of red-hot irons to the surface of the wound had indeed ceased three centuries before, when that humane reformer, Paré, 90 displaced it with the method of tying the open blood-vessel, but the patient’s blood gushed forth before him until arrested, into the sawdust spread to receive it, and the sight and the hot odour of it oftentimes mercifully caused him to faint. ”

“ In general, we may say that a murderer is much more likely to escape without blood-stains in contused wounds, and more likely in the case of punctured wounds than in incised wounds, for in punctured wounds the bleeding is much less free and is less likely to spurt from the wound. In the case of incised wounds he is most apt to escape without stains if he is behind or to the side of the victim when he inflicts the wound—in other words, when a part of the body of the deceased was between the assailant and the wound inflicted. ”

“ The mass upon the floor fetches a last agonizing shrug, and a low moan, and is dead. The murderer stands over him, exultant, as the blood streams from the deep fracture. In fine, the blood of his victim would seem rather to increase his satisfaction at the deed, than excite a regret. ”

“ Thou art wounded—and with a poisoned weapon, I warrant me, for by force of stab so weak an animal as that could scarce hope to do more than raze the lion's hide.—Suck the poison from his wound one of you—the venom is harmless on the lips, though fatal when it mingles with the blood. ”

“ Blood must flow, for blood alone can cleanse. Blood alone can cleanse.”
A young soldier was caught as he climbed the stairs of a small house. He was brought into the street and told to kneel. “I have heard of your Jesus and his forgiveness,” he said; “now I know.” He knelt with a sort of dignity, the dignity that death brings to the brave, and his head fell.
His words struck through the blood fever to the heart of the man in black. For a second he closed his eyes and when he opened them again he saw with his old clearness. He knew that blood is blood and shame came over him. ”

“ If blood is not found on a weapon, hair and other substances which can be identified may be. This is especially the case with blunt weapons, on which, as we have seen, blood usually fails. A fragment of the weapon may break off in the wound, as in stab-wounds, and may be identified as belonging to one in the murderer’s possession.
The signs of a struggle furnish important evidence, as they are not likely to be found in the case of suicide. ”

“ It strikes at the neighbours and at the most distant relatives of the murderer: it strikes, too, at the children that are born when the murderer has been gathered to his fathers. It ends only when there is hardly anyone left to kill, or when a paltry sum of money is offered to placate a glutted thirst for blood. ”

“ The wounded came and went in an unbroken stream. The tables were always occupied. I went from one to another, unwound bandages, held up limbs for amputation, fetched splints, padding, gauze, or new bandages. I was too busy to think or to feel any horror. I was vaguely conscious of nausea and of a hot, stifling atmosphere heavy with the fumes of chloroform and ether.
Some of the wounded had arms that hung by shreds of muscle and sinew. Others had feet that were nothing but masses of clotted blood, lumps of torn flesh, and bits of bone tied up in blood-sodden linen parcels. ”

“ Strangulation or smothering, or throttling, is consistent with what has been described, but particularly throttling or applying the hand under the throat, and throwing the head backward, would prevent the access of air. I found unequivocal proof of violence, in the contusions dispersed throughout the body, and in no signs of disease being visible. I beg to add, from the woman being seen so recently alive and well, from the blood under the bed, as well as the appearances already mentioned, death by violence is extremely probable. ”

“ Again, I imagine that in many persons death is caused by the coagulation of the blood, which freezes and hardens in their veins, as it happens with those who have eaten hemlock, or who have been bitten by certain serpents; but there are others whose death is caused by too great an ebullition of blood, as in painful maladies, and in certain poisons, and even, they say, in certain kinds of plague, and when people die a violent death, or have been drowned. ”

“ A weary and harassing thing it is even where the body is the aggressor—when the fevered blood, darting like liquid fire through the veins, mounts to the throbbing brow, and, pressing like molten lead upon the brain, crushes out thought and feeling, leaving but a dull consciousness of the racking agony which renders each limb a separate instrument of torture. ”

“ Ruffling, and facing each other with their necks outstretched, “blood in their eyes,” and realizing to the full extent the danger of the situation, they prepare to fight it out to death. A quick stab, and the victim, trembling violently, a stream of red blood trickling down its leg, drops at the first encounter, and the fight is over. ”

“ To which we reply, that the issuing of fresh and crimson blood from the wound or the nostrils of the persons body that hath been murthered, is always a certain sign that the 307Corps that doth so bleed was murthered, because those that die naturally or violently by chance, man-slaughter or in the war, do not bleed, as hath been proved before. ”

“ In the attack:—If the bleeding is extensive the patient falls suddenly into coma, and this may soon prove fatal. If the bleeding is slight at first and gradually increases, the patient is delirious at first, then one arm, then one side, and finally the whole body may become paralyzed, and unconsciousness, and even death may come from the paralysis of the heart and breathing nerve centers. In many cases the patient falls unconscious without previous warning. The face is red, the eyes injected, the lips are blue, the pulse is full and slow, and the breathing is slow and deep. ”

“ In many places the street was covered with small pools and clots of blood, which flowed from those who lay insensible—while others were borne away bleeding, groaning, or staggering, having been battered into a total unconsciousness of the scene about them. ”

“ It is rather remarkable that the bleeding is not so profuse as might be expected from the severity of the torture, and soon ceases, probably from the fact of their extreme exhaustion and debility; the want of sustenance and sleep, checks the natural circulation, and is at the same time an admirable preparation for the tortures, and enables them to bear the infliction without the same degree of pain that might, under other circumstances, result in inflammation and death. ”

“ Consequently, with the exception of wounds inflicted very soon after death, we can distinguish an ante-mortem from a post-mortem wound by the condition in which the blood is clotted. If there is any hemorrhage, the wound being inflicted before the loss of animal heat and the blood remains entirely fluid on the surface or in an ecchymosis, we know that the wound was produced after death and some hours after death unless any of those conditions exist in which the blood does not normally coagulate. ”

“ Men with arms in slings; men with trousers torn away at the knee, and bandaged legs; men with brow, face, mouth, or [Pg 152] throat swathed; men with no shirts, but a broad swathe around the chest or stomach—each bandage grotesquely pictured with human figures printed to show how the wound should be bound, on whatever part of the body the bullet entered. ”

“ Pecuniary compositions for bloodshed, prevailing, as they presumably have, at some period in the history of every race, can not indeed be accounted for on any theory of punishment. They were conceived and established for purposes of pacification, apart from considerations of punishment or discipline. Blood for blood is an instinct of human nature; it is the justice which among every race was meted out with unsparing hand by the kindred of the slain when the burden and privilege of redress were upon them, and again by the state when she assumed the punishment of crimes. ”

“ Gunshot wounds vary in gravity from the simplest laceration of cuticle to the instantaneous destruction of life. Death may take place primarily from direct causes already alluded to, viz.: from the destruction of vital organs, from extreme shock to the vital forces through the nervous system, or from hemorrhage; or it may ensue indirectly from secondary hemorrhage, gangrene, erysipelas, hectic fever, pyemia, or from the results of operations necessarily required in consequence of the original injury. ”

“ If there is no disease found which could be rapidly fatal the case is still stronger. The body should be pallid after fatal hemorrhage, but the same may be the case from death from other causes. In case the body and surrounding objects have not been disturbed, then the amount of clotted blood in the wound, on the body and clothes, and about the body, taken in connection with the foregoing points, can leave no doubt. ”

“ The little discomfort which the flowing of blood causes me, compared with the other pain, is like a fresh breeze after a blast from the infernal regions. It does me a real good to see my blood pouring forth: let it flow, it does me extreme good."
The stranger watched with an expression of delight the blood pouring from the wound, and the doctor was obliged to insist on binding up the hand. ”

“ If he is wounded, cut away the clothing covering the wound, but don't remove any more than is necessary. If he has been burned, pour lukewarm water, containing a little saleratus or bicarbonate of soda, over the clothing before you remove it. If he is bleeding severely, stop the bleeding before dressing the wound. After the wound is dressed there is nothing for the novice to do, except bring the patient to consciousness, if unconscious, and remove him to a place of safety and comfort. ”