The members of the human body may be injured (1) by a blow, which without bloodshed causes pain or a bruise; (2) by a wound, which breaks the continuity of the tissues; (3) by mutilation, which, without killing, removes some member requisite for the integrity of the body. The term Mutilation as applied to the human body has various meanings. In the civil law mutilation of a person is called Mayhem, an old form of the word Maim, and is defined by Blackstone[5] as "such hurt of any part of a man's body as renders him less able in fighting to defend himself or annoy his adversary." By statute in the United States and Great Britain the scope of the offence has been so extended as to include injuries to a person which merely disfigure or disable. Mutilation in the civil law now implies the taking away of some part of a legal instrument, as a will, contract, or the like, by any one who has no right to make this alteration. [5] _Commentary_, bk. iv, p. 205. In canon law mutilation is like malicious or accidental mayhem in the civil law, and it has also a technical phase in relation to irregularity as affecting the reception of ecclesiastical orders. The mutilation requisite to irregularity as affecting the reception of Holy Orders may differ from mutilation in its purely moral and accidental aspects. Broadly, an irregularity is a canonical and permanent impediment to the reception and exercise of ecclesiastical orders. It does not exist unless it is actually promulgated in some canon, and it is not necessarily grounded on corporal deformity. Defects of the body that cause canonical irregularity are such as would render the public ministration of a clergyman either impossible or indecent. Molina, treating of mutilation, says[6] it does not exist unless there is an amputation or shortening (_detruncatio_) of a member. When a foot or hand is so weakened without amputation that it cannot exercise its function the person is said to be maimed or lame, not mutilated. He holds that a finger, and _a fortiori_ a phalanx of a finger, are not properly members. In defining mutilation as a cause of canonical irregularity[7] he contends that the weakening of a member so that it cannot perform its function is not a true mutilation canonically. He does not agree[8] with Cajetan, de Soto, and others who hold that an important part of a whole member is equivalent to a member so far as technical canonical mutilation is concerned. Molina says that a part of the body as a member to fulfil the requirements of the law on mutilation as a cause of irregularity must have a distinct, complete function of its own, not be a mere part conducing to the function. Ballerini[9] agrees with Molina, but he draws attention to a decretal of Innocent I. which makes an amputation by oneself of even a part of one's own finger a full canonical irregularity, because of the unnatural quality of the act. [6] _De Justitia et Jure_, disp. 19, tr. 3. [7] _Ibid._, disp. 68, tr. 3.