COPYRIGHT, 1885, BY DODD MEAD & COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY University Press: JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. THE INTERNATIONAL CYCLOPÆDIA. ST TRANGFORD, PERCY CLINTON SYDNEY SMYTHE, 1780-1855; Irish scholar and diplomat; during the period 1817-25, successively British ambassador to Stockholm, Constantinople, and St. Petersburg; in 1825 created Lord Penshurst; author of a translation of the poems of Camoens. His son Percy, 1825-69, was an Orientalist. STRANGULATION may be defined to be "an act of violence in which constriction is applied directly to the neck, either around it or in the fore part, so as to prevent the passage of air, and thereby suddenly suspending respiration and life."-Taylor's Principles and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence, 1865, p. 673. This definition, as Dr. Taylor observes, obviously includes hanging (q.v.). Hanging has been already briefly noticed in a special article, but the medico-legal relations of this and the other varieties of strangulation have still to be considered. When the suspension of a body has not continued for much more than five minutes, and the parts about the neck have not suffered violence, there is a probability that resuscitation may be established; although many cases are recorded when, after only a few minutes' suspension, it has been found impossible to restore life. It is believed that death takes place very rapidly, and without causing any suffering; the violent convulsions that are so often observed being similar to those which occur in epilepsy. A man named Hornshaw, who was on three occasions resuscitated from hanging-a feat which he performed in London for the amusement of the public-stated that he lost his senses almost at once, and other persons who have been restored state that the only symptoms of which they were conscious were a ringing in the ears, a flash of light before the eyes, then darkness and oblivion. The treatment to be adopted after the patient has been cut down may be briefly summed up as follows: exposure to a free current of air, cold affusion if the skin is warm, the application of ammonia to the nostrils, of mustard poultices to the chest and legs, and of hot water to the feet, and the subsequent abstraction of blood, if there should be much cerebral congestion; artificial respiration should also be tried if the above means fail to re-establish the respiratory process. From the postmortem appearances, together with circumstantial evidence, the medical practitioner is not unfrequently called upon to decide such questions as these: Was death caused by hanging, or was the body suspended after death? Was the hanging the result of accident, homicide, or suicide? For the full discussion of these questions the reader is referred to chap. 53 of Dr. Taylor's volume. In case of strangulation from other causes than that of hanging, the post-mortem symptoms are similar, but the injury done to the parts about the neck is commonly greater. In manual strangulation, the external marks of injury will be in front of the neck, about and below the larynx; and if death has been caused by a ligature, the mark round the neck will be circular, whereas in hanging it is usually oblique. The internal appearances are much the same as in the case of hanging. STRANGURY (Gr. strange, that which oozes out, oureo, I micturate) is perhaps to be regarded as a symptom rather than a disease. It shows itself in a frequent and irresistible desire to pass water, which is discharged, however, in very small quantity, and whose passage from the bladder is accompanied with scalding and cutting pains along the course of the urethra. The pain often extends to the bladder and even to the kidneys, and is sometimes so severe as to implicate the lower bowel (the rectum), and to produce the straining condition known as tenesmus. It is usually caused by irritating substances in the urine, especially by cantharides or Spanish flies (whose irritant principle is liable to find its way into the renal secretion, whether the above named drug is taken internally or merely applied to the skin as a blistering agent), and by oil of turpentine, when administered internally in small doses, and is generally present in cases of gravel. Severe as the affection is, it is very transitory, and yields readily to treatment. |