l to
attend accurately to the force of cohesion between the skin and the
scarf-skin: and still more, to be well acquainted with the various
appearances of the blood settling upon the external parts of the body,
and transuding through all the internal parts in proportion to the time
that it has been dead, and to the degree of heat in which it has been
kept.

When a child's head or face looks swoln, and is very red, or black, the
vulgar, because hanged people look so, are apt to conclude that it must
have been strangled. But those who are in the practice of midwifery know
that nothing is more common in natural births, and that the swelling and
deep colour go gradually off, if the child lives but a few days. This
appearance is particularly observable in those cases where the naval
string happens to gird the child's neck, and where its head happens to
be born some time before its body.

There are many other circumstances to be learned by an extensive
experience in anatomy and midwifery, which, for fear of making this
paper prolix, and thence less useful, I shall pass over, and come to the
material question, _viz._ in suspicious cases, how far may we conclude
that the child was born alive, and probably murdered by its mother, if
the lungs swim in water?

First, We may be assured that they contain air. Then we are to find out
if that air be generated by putrefaction.

Secondly, To determine this question, we are to examine the other
internal parts, to see if they be emphysematous, or contain air; and we
must examine the appearance of the air-bubbles in the lungs with
particular attention. If the air which is in them be that of
respiration, the air-bubbles will hardly be visible to the naked eye;
but if the air-bubbles be large, or if they run in lines along the
fissures between the component _lobuli_ of the lungs, the air is
certainly emphysematous, and not air which had been taken in by
breathing.

Thirdly, If the air in the lungs be found to be contained in the natural
air-vesicles, and to have the appearance of air received into them by
breathing, let us next find out if that air was not perhaps blown into
the lungs after the death of the infant. It is so generally known that a
child, born apparently dead, may be brought to life by inflating its
lungs, that the mother herself, or some other person, might have tried
the experiment. It might even have been done with a most diabolical
intention of bringing about the co