at its upper end.
Briggs reports a case in which a wine glass was introduced into
the rectum, and although removed twenty-four hours afterward,
death ensued. Hockenhull extracted 402 stones from the rectum of
a boy of seven. Landerer speaks of a curious case in which the
absorptive power of the rectum was utilized in the murder of a
boy of fifteen. In order to come into the possession of a large
inheritance the murderess poisoned the boy by introducing the
ends of some phosphorous matches into his rectum, causing death
that night; there was intense inflammation of the rectum. The
woman was speedily apprehended, and committed suicide when her
crime was known.
Complete transfixion of the abdomen does not always have a fatal
issue. In fact, two older writers, Wisemann and Muys, testify
that it is quite possible for a person to be transfixed without
having any portion of the intestines or viscera wounded. In some
nations in olden times, the extremest degree of punishment was
transfixion by a stake. In his voyages and travels, in describing
the death of the King of Demaa at the hands of his page, Mendez
Pinto says that instead of being reserved for torture, as were
his successors Ravaillac, and Gerard, the slayer of William the
Silent, the assassin was impaled alive with a long stake which
was thrust in at his fundament and came out at the nape of his
neck.
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