Medical Jurisprudence, Forensic medicine and Toxicology. Vol. 1Witthaus, R. A. (Rudolph August)
Science
Medical Jurisprudence, Forensic medicine and Toxicology. Vol. 1
Witthaus, R. A. (Rudolph August)
Medical jurisprudence; Poisons; Toxicology
=Disposal and Obligations to Dispose of the Same.=—There is no right
of property, in the ordinary sense of the word, in a dead human body;
but for the health and protection of society it is a rule of the common
law, and which has been confirmed by statutes in civilized states
and countries, that public duties are imposed upon public officers,
and private duties upon the husband or wife and the next of kin of
the deceased, to protect the body from violation and see that it is
properly interred, and to protect it after it is interred. A parent is
bound to provide Christian burial for a deceased child, if he has the
means, but if he has not the means, though the body remains unburied
so long as to become a nuisance, he is not indictable for the nuisance
although he could obtain money for the burial expenses by borrowing it
of the poor-law authorities of the parish, for he is not bound to incur
a debt. (Reg. _v._ Vann, 2 Div. C. C., 325; 15 Jur., 1,090.) On the
other hand it has been held in England, that every householder in whose
house a dead body lies is bound by the common law, if he has the means
to do so, to inter the body decently, and this principle applies where
a person dies in the house of a parish or a union. (Reg. _v._ Stewart,
12 A. & D., 1,272.) And the expense may be paid out of the effects of
the deceased. (Tugwell _v._ Hayman, 3 Camp., 298, and note.)
In Pierce _v._ The Proprietors Swan Point Cemetery, 10 R. I., 227,
s. c., 14 Am. Rep., 667, the Court said: “That there is no right
of property in a dead body, using this word in its ordinary sense,
may be well admitted, yet the burial of the dead is a subject which
interests the feelings of mankind to a much greater degree than many
matters of actual property. There is a duty imposed by the universal
feelings of mankind to be discharged by some one toward the dead; a
duty, and we may also say a right, to protect from violation; it may,
therefore, be considered as a sort of _quasi_ property, and it would
be discreditable to any system of law not to provide a remedy in such
a case; ... but the person having charge of it cannot be considered as
the owner of it in any sense whatever, he holds it only as a sacred
trust for the benefit of all who may from family or friendship have
an interest in it.” See also Wyncoop _v._ Wyncoop, 42 Pa. St., 293; 4
Albany Law Jour., 56; Snyder _v._ Snyder, 60 How. Prac., 368; Weld _v._
Walker, 130 Mass., 422; Guthrie _v._ Weaver, 1 Mo. Apps., 136; Johnson
_v._ Marinus, 18 Abb. N. C., 72, and note.[493]
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