healed, and, with the exception of one, all the cicatrices were firm and level; they were traced into the intestines, where corresponding adhesions were observed.[103] The surgical practitioner will, after such cases, be cautious in his prognosis, and profit by the experience of Hoffman, who says, “_In judicio de vulnerum lethalitate ferendo multorum Medicorum fama et fortuna periclitantur_.”[104] Fortunately for the administration of justice, that act of the Legislature, called “_the Ellenborough act_,” relieves us from many of those embarrassments under which the professional witness[105] must otherwise have laboured, and the surgeon will appreciate the high importance and utility of the law, by which wounding with an intent to kill is deemed equally criminal, whether death be the result or not. Still, however, the testimony of the medical practitioner will always be important; indeed the evil intent is often to be inferred, or disproved, by the nature of the injury inflicted; as is so well illustrated in the case of a man, who fractured the skull of a boy with a stick, upon finding him in the act of plundering his orchard; when it was clearly made out in evidence, that a mere chastisement was only intended, for the size of the stick was not such as to have occasioned any fatal effect, had not the skull of the unfortunate boy been unusually thin. If the surgeon is called upon to inspect a wound, with a view to ascertain whether it produced death, he should in the first instance, endeavour to examine its nature and direction, so as to disturb as little as possible the position in which the body was found; the knife of the anatomist must afterwards explore its more particular condition and relations, by a dissection, for the performance of which we shall give ample directions in a future chapter. The importance of examining the wound, so as not to alter the position of the parts must be obvious when we consider how necessary it may afterwards become to compare as strictly as possible the internal appearances with the external lesions. The direction of a wound is frequently a circumstance of much greater importance than may at first appear, we ought not therefore to probe it without extreme caution, lest we should give to it a direction which it did not originally possess. This precaution becomes the more necessary as the putrefactive process advances.