Page 1126. Mr. Coatsworth a Surgeon sworn
My Lord in April last I was sent for by Dr. Philips to come to Hertford to see the body of Mrs. Stout opened, who had been six weeks buried; and he told me that there was a suspicion she was murdered, and that her relations were willing to have her taken up and opened. I came down I think on the 27th of April, and lay at Mrs. Stout’s house that night; and by her discourse I understood she wanted to be satisfied, whether her daughter was with child? I told her, it was my opinion we should find the parts contained in the abdomen so rotten, that it would be impossible to discover the uterus from the other parts; however, if she would have her opened, I could not discover whether she was with child, unless the infant was become bony. Her face and neck, to her shoulders, appeared black, and so much corrupted that we were unwilling to proceed any further: but, however, her mother would have it done, and so we did open her; and as soon as she was opened, we perceived the stomach and guts were as full of wind as if they had been blown with a pair of bellows; we put her guts aside, and came to the uterus, and Dr. Philips shewed it us in his hand, and afterwards cut it out and laid it on the table, and opened it, and we saw into the cavity of it, and if there had been any thing there as minute as a hair, we might have seen it, but it was perfectly free and empty; after that we put the intestines into their places; and we bid him open the stomach, and it was opened with an incision knife, and it sunk flat, and let out wind, but no water; afterwards we opened the breast and lobes of the lungs, and there was no water; then we looked on each side and took up the lobes of the lungs too, to see if there was no water in the diaphragm, and there was none, but all dry. Then I remember I said, this woman could not be drowned, for if she had taken in water, the water must have rotted all the guts: that was the construction I made of it then; but for any marks about her head and neck, it was impossible for us to discover it, because they were so rotten.
Edward Clement (a seaman) sworn. In the year 89 or 90, in Beachy fight, I saw several thrown over-board during the engagement, but one particularly I took notice of, that was my friend, and killed by my side; I saw him swim for a considerable distance from the ship; and a ship coming under our stern, caused me to lose sight of him, but I saw several dead bodies floating at the same time; likewise in another engagement, where a man had both his legs shot off, and died instantly, they threw over his legs; though they sunk I saw his body float: likewise I have seen several men who have died natural deaths at sea, they have when they have been dead, had a considerable weight of ballast and shot made fast to them, and so were thrown overboard; because we hold it for a general rule, that all men swim if they be dead before they come into the water; and on the contrary, I have seen men when they have been drowned, that they have sunk as soon as their breath was out of their bodies, and I could see no more of them. For instance, a man fell out of the Cornwall, and sunk down to rights, and seven days afterwards we weighed anchor, and he was brought up grasping his arm about the cable: and we have observed in several cases, that where men fall overboard, as soon as their breath is out of their bodies they sink downright; and on the contrary, where a dead body is thrown over-board without weight, it will swim. * * * Men (that are killed) float with their heads just down, and the small of their backs and buttocks upwards, * * * why should government be at that vast charge to allow threescore or fourscore weight of iron to sink any man, but only that their swimming about should not be a discouragement to others.
Robert Dew sworn—* * * (Question by the Prisoner) After she was taken out, did you observe any froth or foam come from her mouth or nose? Dew—There was a white froth came from her, and as they wiped it away, it was on again presently.
—— Young—(another witness to a similar question)—* * And when they had taken her up (out of the water) they laid her down upon a green place, and after she was laid down a great quantity of froth, like the froth of new beer, worked out of her nostrils. * * * It rose up in bladders, and ran down on the sides of her face, and so rose again.
Dr. Sloane sworn—* * As to my opinion of drowning it is plain, that if a great quantity of water be swallowed into the stomach by the gullet, it will not suffocate or drown the person: Drunkards who swallow a great deal of liquor, and those who are forced by the civil law to drink a great quantity of water, which in giving the question (as it is called) is poured into them by way of torture to make them confess crimes, have no suffocation or drowning happen to them: But on the other hand, when any quantity comes into the wind-pipe, so as it does hinder or intercept inspiration, or coming in of the air, which is necessary for inspiration or breathing, the person is suffocated. Such a small quantity will do, as sometimes in prescriptions, when people have been very weak, or forced to take medicines, I have observed some spoonfuls in that condition (if it went the wrong way) to have choaked or suffocated the person. I take drowning in a great measure to be thus, and when one struggles he may, to save himself from being choaked, swallow some quantity of water, yet that is not the cause of his death, but that which goes into the wind-pipe and lungs. Whether a person comes dead or alive into the water, I believe some quantity will go into the wind-pipe; and I believe without force after death, little will get into the stomach, because that it should, swallowing is necessary, which after death cannot be done. * * *
Baron Hatsell. But what do you say to this? if there had been water in the body, would it not have putrified the parts after it had lain six weeks.
Dr. Sloane. My Lord, I am apt to think it would have putrified the stomach less than the lungs, because the stomach is a part of the body that is contrived by nature partly to receive liquids; but the contrivance of the lungs is only for the receiving of air; they being of a spongy nature, the water might sink more into them than the stomach; but I believe it might putrify there too after some time. I am apt to think, that when a body is buried under ground, according to the depth of the grave, and difference of the weather and soil, the fermentation may be greater or lesser, and that according to the several kinds of meats or liquids in the stomach, the putrifaction will likewise vary so that it seems to me to be very uncertain.
Baron Hatsell. But when they are in a coffin, how is it then?
Dr. Sloane. No doubt there will be a fermentation more or less, according as the air comes more or less to the body. Indeed it may be otherwise where the air is wholly shut out, which is supposed to be the way of embalming, or preserving of dead bodies of late, without the use of any spices, which is thought in a great measure to be brought about by the closeness of the coffin, and hindering of the air from coming into the body.
Question (by the Prisoner). Is it possible, in your judgment, for any water to pass into the thorax?
Dr. Sloane. I believe it is hardly possible, that any should go from the wind-pipe into the cavity of the thorax, without great violence and force; for there is a membrane that covers the outside of the lungs, that will hinder the water from passing through it into any part without them.
Dr. Garth sworn.—* * * All dead bodies (I believe) fall to the bottom, unless they be prevented by some extraordinary tumour. * * * I believe when she threw herself in, she might not struggle to save herself, and by consequence not sup up much water. Now there is no direct passage into the stomach but by the gullet, which is contracted or pursed up by a muscle in nature of a sphincter: for if this passage was always open like that of the wind-pipe, the weight of the air would force itself into the stomach, and we should be sensible of the greatest inconveniences. * * * My Lord, I think we have reason to suspect the Seaman’s evidence; for he saith that threescore pound of iron is allowed to sink dead bodies, whereas six or seven pounds would do as well; * * the design of tying weights to their bodies, is to prevent their floating at all, which otherwise would happen in some few days.[182]
Dr. Morley, the next witness, related some experiments on animals.
Dr. Wollaston, sworn.—* * I saw two men that were drowned out of the same boat. They were taken up the next day after they were drowned; one of them was indeed prodigiously swelled, so much that his clothes were burst in several places of his sides and arms, and his stockings in the seams * * the other was not the least swelled in any part nor discolored; he was as lank, I believe, as ever he was in his lifetime, and there was not the least sign of any water in him, except the watery froth at his mouth and nostrils.[183]
Mr. W. Cooper, sworn.—* * Dead bodies necessarily sink in water, if no distention of their parts buoy them up; this distention sometimes happens before death, at other times soon after, and in bodies that are drowned after they lie under water.
Dr. Crell, sworn.—My Lord, it must be reading, as well as a man’s own experience, that will make any one a Physician: for without the reading of books in that art, the art itself cannot be attained to: besides, my Lord, I humbly conceive, that in such a difficult case as this, we ought to have a great deference for the reports and opinions of learned men: neither do I see any reason why I should not quote the fathers of my profession in this case, as well as you gentlemen of the long robe quote Coke upon Littleton in others. * * I shall only insist on what Ambrose Pare relates in his Chapter of Renunciations. * *
Mr. Harriot (a Naval Surgeon) sworn.—* * When we threw men overboard that were killed, some of them swam and some sunk * * (when a dead body is thrown overboard) I always observed that it did sink. * *
Mr. Bartlet (a Naval Surgeon), sworn.—* * I never saw any bodies float, either of the men that were killed in our ship, or in the ships that have been near us; I have not seen a body on the surface of the water.
We have merely made comparatively short extracts from this trial, as more copious quotations, both of the evidence, and pamphlets subsequently published, would have occupied too great a space. The whole will be found in Howell’s State Trials, and is well worthy of the attention of the Medical or Legal reader.