It would appear that in a proper case the Court, in the interests of justice, will compel the exhuming and examination of a dead body which is under the control of a plaintiff, if there is strong reason to believe that without such examination a fraud is likely to be accomplished, and the defendant has exhausted every other method known to the law of exposing it. However, such an order should be made only upon a strong showing to that effect. “It would be a proceeding repugnant to the best feelings of our nature, and likely to be in many cases so abhorrent to the sensibilities of the surviving relatives, that they would prefer an abandonment of the suit to a compliance with the order.” Thus spake the court in a case where the order for exhuming was asked for and refused as not being justified under the circumstances. The action was on a policy of insurance, and the defence was, that the insured had falsely warranted that he had never received any serious personal injury, whereas his skull had been fractured in boyhood, and had been healed by trephining. To prove this, the company proposed to disinter his body, after the suit had been pending eighteen months, upon the sole testimony of his physician, that the deceased had said that he had been told of such an accident and operation. The counsel for the plaintiff called the proposal “revolting,” and said that to break the signet of the grave, and take from its resting place the sacred property of relatives to gratify the corporation’s mercenary curiosity, would be worse than Shylock’s demand [432]. |160| CHAPTER XIII. DENTISTS. The need of dentists existed long before dentistry. The Preacher knew of the inconveniences which arise when the grinders are few. Marcellus, about B. C. 380, gave two receipts for toothache. One is, “Say, ‘argidam, margidam, sturgidam;’” the other is, “Spit in a frog’s mouth and request him to make off with the complaint.” These are given in Glenn’s “Laws affecting Medical Men.”