In relation to wounds and contusions, the possibility of minute punctured wounds of the brain or other vital organs; in reference to injuries of the head, the effusion of blood under the scalp, not in the situation where it could have been produced during labour, or fracture of the bones not producible by compression of the head during labour, and not connected with defective ossification of the skull; in reference to the allegation that the head was injured by the child suddenly dropping from the mother, when not recumbent, the presence of sand or other foreign matters on the contused scalp, and the existence of more than one injury of the head; in relation to suffocation, the external and internal signs of this form of death--marks of compression of the mouth, and nose, and throat, and the presence of foreign matters in the mouth and throat, air-passages, gullet, or stomach, especially if the body be found in contact with similar substances; in reference to bleeding from the navel-string, a bloodless state of the body, without any wound to account for it; in reference to poisons, most commonly narcotics, the absence of any of the above appearances, with an otherwise healthy state of the body; in reference to starvation and exposure, emaciation of the body, absence of food from the stomach, and an empty, contracted condition of the intestines; in reference to the possibility of the child having been suddenly expelled, and having fallen on the floor or into privies, &c., the state of the navel-string is to be noted--whether long or short, whether remaining attached to the child and connected with the after-birth, indicating rapid labour, or, if divided, whether it had been cut or torn across. Nature of the ligature used, if any. 65. The circumstances noticed in Sects. 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, compared with the signs of recent delivery in the female, will lead to the decision of the question whether the suspected female be the mother of the child. These circumstances may be shortly recapitulated as being the signs of the degree of maturity of the child--the signs on the body of the kind of labour, the signs which indicate the date of its death, and the interval which elapsed both between its birth and death, and between its death and the inspection. EXHUMATIONS