MEDICO-LEGAL EVIDENCE 
OF 
INDEPENDENT LIFE 
IN A 
NEW-BORN CHILD. 
J. B. GASTON. M. D., OF MONTGOMERY, ALA. MEDICO-LEGAL EVIDENCE 
OF 
INDEPENDENT LIFE IN A NEW-BORN CHILD. 
BY J. B. GASTON, M. D., OF MONTGOMERY, ALA. 
[Extracted from the American Journal of Medical Sciences, Jan., 1876.] 
The present status of medico-legal opinion in regard to the 
signs of independent life in a new-born child, is shown by the 
testimony of medical experts, and the judgments of courts, 
both American and English, in the following law cases which 
involved the statutory descent of large amounts of property. 
The Kent County Supreme Court has been engaged all this week with a very 
important case. Under the laws of Delaware the property of a wife who dies 
without issue descends not to her husband, but to those of her own blood. 
Ten years ago, Henry Stout, a wealthy D over lawyer, died, leaving his property 
to his three children. Five years ago, his only daughter married the Rev. H. 
R. Hall, of Lewes, and a year later she died in giving birth to her first child. 
The latter, it is claimed by the father, lived for a few minutes after being 
delivered, but this, Mrs. Hall's brothers denied. If the babe breathed for a 
single second after birth, then its mother's property descended to her husband. 
If it was dead when delivered, however, the mother died without issue and her 
property descended to her brothers. To settle the question, the brothers 
brought suit for the property, and the case occupied the attention of the court 
the entire week. For the plaintiffs Senator Saulsbury and ex-Senator Comegys 
appeared, and the defendant was represented by ex-Judge Layton, ex-Congress- 
man Smithers and Edward Ridgely, Esq. The first witness called was Dr. 
George Goodell, who attended Mrs. Hall in her fatal sickness, and delivered 
her of a child. He was positive the child showed no signs of respiration or 
muscular motion after birth. This was all the material evidence offered by the 
plaintiffs at this stage of the proceedings. Dr. Page, who was also present at 
the delivery of the child, was called by the defense. He believed the child had 
a distinct existence, for with his ear upon its chest he had heard its heart 
beat; he also saw the temporal arteries vibrate and the umbilical cord throb. 2 
Dr. Penrose, Professor of Obstetrics in the University of Pennsylvania, being 
called as an expert, said, that, from what he had heard, he felt confident of the 
child's independent and distinct existence. Drs. Jump and Shoemaker gave 
similar testimony. In rebuttal, the plaintiffs called Drs. Cahall, Ezekiel and 
William Cooper, who testified that the child had none other than a foetal life, 
and that its existence was necessarily imperfect and indistinct-of no account 
whatever in establishing the defendant's claim to his dead wife's property. 
This closed the evidence, and the case was argued at great length by counsel. 
Yesterday morning arguments were concluded, and Chief Justice Gilpin deliv- 
ered an elaborate charge to the jury, who were then given the case, and to-day 
they returned a verdict in favor of Hall, the defendant, basing it upon the sup- 
position that the child drew at least one breath in this world, sufficient to pos- 
sess Mr. H. with a fortune.- Wilmington (Del.) Letter to the Philadelphia Times.* 
Note.-It is strange that in this case any importance whatever should be 
given to the beating of the heart or of any artery, unless the cord had been sev- 
ered. The true view to be adopted in all such cases has long since been set- 
tled by the English Courts. It was furnished in the following case-E. S. G. * 
Legal Evidence ow Life in an Infant.-A case of great interest in med- 
ical jurisprudence (case of Brock versus Kellock), has recently been decided by 
the Vice Chancellor, Sir J. Stuart. The point at issue was to determine the 
legal evidence of life in an infant. Dr. Robert Lee and Dr. F. H. Ramsbotham 
contended that the proof of respiration having been performed was necessary 
to establish the fact of extra-uterine life. Dr. Tyler Smith, Dr. Freeman and 
Dr. Alfred Taylor deposed that the continuance of the heart's action after sev- 
ering of the umbilical cord must be accepted as proof of independent life. 
The Vice Chancellor, in his decision, confirmed Dr. Tyler Smith's view of the 
case, and expressed his surprise that a man of Dr. Lee's position should have 
made such an affidavit. There was a large pecuniary amount involved in the 
decision. The case is of great importance, as it will serve to establish the law, 
which has been much unsettled upon the point at issue.-Richmond and Lou- 
isville Medical Journal. 
From the foregoing cases it appears that both English and 
American courts agree that the beating of the heart of a new- 
born child, after the severance of the umbilical cord, is con- 
clusive of the independent extra-uterine life of the child. This 
judgment of the courts depends upon the testimony of medi- 
cal experts, and it is therefore clearly within the province of 
medical criticism to inquire whether the decision is or is not 
consistent with a just interpretation of the phenomena of 
organic and animal life. 
*Thie extract and note (not in original publication) and extract following, ap- 
peared in the American Medical Weekly, July, 1875. 3 
Of the great functions of organic life, respiration and circu- 
lation appear to be the conditions most unremittingly essential 
to the life of the the higher orders of animals. Respiration, 
which, in general terms, is the evolution of carbonic acid from 
the fluids of organized beings and the absorption of oxygen 
from the surrounding medium, exists alike in the vegetable and 
animal kingdoms. All plants and all animals perform essen- 
tially the same respiratory function. It is an essential of organic 
life. (See Carpenter's Compar. Phys., pp. 253, 298.) Circu- 
lation, on the contrary, is not an essential of organic life. 
The simplest organisms, both animal and vegetable, have no 
circulation whatever. Every part of their surface being 
equally capable of absorbing liquid nutriment, there is no 
necessity for a circulation. 
Medical gentlemen, in testifying that the beating of the 
heart after the severance of the umbilical cord is conclusive 
of the independent extra-uterine life of the child, have under- 
valued that function, respiration, which is always and every- 
where essential to organic life, and have given undue impor- 
tance to a function which is not an essential of organic life, 
and which is found only amongst plants and animals of a 
somewhat complex differentiation of organs. That heart-beat 
is an essential of extra-uterine human life, of course no one 
will deny ; but I do deny that it is the essential upon the pres- 
ence of which can be predicated independent extra-uterine 
life. 
High medical authorities-Drs. Penrose, Page, and others 
of this country, and Drs. Tyler Smith, Freeman, and Alfred 
Taylor of England-testify " that the continuance of the 
heart's action after severing of the umbilical cord must bo 
accepted as proof of independent life." The fact is, however, 
that intra-uterine life, so far as heart-beat is concerned, is just 
as independent of the mother as extra-uterine life. The foetus 
is dependent upon its mother not for heart-beat and circula- 
tion, but for oxygen and nutrient materials. There is no 
direct communication betwixt the vascular systems of the 
foetus and the mother. The relation of the placental ramifi- 
cations of the umbilical vessels and blood of the foetus to the 4 
mother's blood is analogous in many respects to that which 
exists between the branchial vessels and blood of fishes and 
the water, which, in obedience to respiratory movements, 
flows between the gil-fringes, somewhat as the blood in 
the utero-placental sinuses flows around and between 
the foetal villi of the placenta ; and the circulation of the foetus 
is just as independent of the mother as the circulation of the 
fish is of the water in which it lives, and from which it obtains 
its oxygen and food. The foetal heart-beat and circulation, 
as such, are, therefore, as independent as the adult heart- 
beat and circulation. Not so with respiration. For the per- 
formance of this function the foetus is entirely dependent 
upon its relations with its mother. Of the great organic func- 
tions, the suspension of any one of which would place life in 
immediate and imminent danger, none is so differentially 
characteristic of 'foetal life as placental respiration. Destroy 
it, and intra-uterine life must end. What placental respira- 
tion is to the foetus, pulmonary respiration is to the infant. 
When the former ceases, an essential of intra-uterine life ends. 
When the latter is established, a sine qua non of extra-uterine 
life has been supplied. Heart-beat and respiration are such 
absolute essentials of advanced foetal and extra-uterine life, 
and death follows so suddenly and surely the destruction of 
either of these functions, that I conceive the true doctrine to 
be that no child can be known to be alive in which either cir- 
culation or respiration has been destroyed ; and consequently, 
since birth involves the speedy destruction of placental respi- 
ration, that independent extra-uterine life cannot be affirmed 
of an infant which has not breathed. Heart-beat is essential 
to both intra-uterine and extra-uterine life, but it is not char- 
acteristic of either. So it is with respiration; but placental 
respiration is characteristic of intra-uterine life, and pulmonary 
respiration is characteristic of extra-uterine life. At birth no 
sign can be conclusive of independent extra-uterine life which 
is not characteristic of extra-uterine life. Does division of the 
cord give to heart-beat a characteristic and independent 
feature which it did not possess before ? I think not. If 
from a railroad train in rapid motion the engine should be 5 
detached, would not the brief, continued motion of the train 
be entirely dependent upon its recent relations to the engine ? 
Division of the cord cuts off, so far as the mother is concerned, 
a further supply of conditions of life; but it does not give in- 
dependence of life. I hold that the phenomena observed in 
the children mentioned in the Delaware and English law cases, 
if they were, and so far as they were signs of life, were in the 
same measure dependent upon recent relations to the mothers, 
as were similar signs before de vision of the cords. 
In the children above mentioned, and in all like cases, there 
is good reason to believe that the heart's action should not be 
relied upon as a strictly test sign of animal life. The first of 
the permanent organs of the embryo to display functional 
activity, the heart pulsates while its walls are still in a cellu- 
lar condition, before the formation of its own muscular tissue, 
or the development of nerve-tissue either in its own substance 
or in the body at large. It beats through life so constantly, 
and so regularly, that we can almost " count time by heart- 
throbs ; " and physiologists, however they may differ as to the 
theory, agree as to the fact that it may continue to beat after 
death. Nay more, Mr. Todd has shown, contrary to what 
might be expected, that this power of rhythmical contraction 
after death is especially persistent in every young animals. 
The independence of the heart's action has been demonstra- 
ted by numerous experiments. In some cold-blooded animals 
it will continue to beat for many hours after its removal from 
the body. This is easily demonstrated with the hearts of the 
frog and the turtle ; and Dr. Mitchell (Amer. Journ., vol. vii. 
p. 58) states that the heart of a sturgeon, which had been 
removed from the body, continued its rhythmical movements 
until the auricle had become so dry that a rustling sound was 
heard with each contraction. 
The life of a new-born child rests very largely upon the 
action of the heart. It is probably the most constantly essen- 
tial of the "props" of the " tripod of life." The independence 
of extra-uterine life rests, however, neither upon the beating 
of the heart, nor upon the division of the cord, nor upon both 
of them together, but upon the substitution of the extra-uterine 6 
conditions of a great organic function constantly essential to 
life, for the fcetal conditions of the same function which have 
been, or are about to be destroyed. Pulmonary respiration 
substitutes real, tangible conditions of independence for those 
of dependence; and until it is established there can be no 
" independent life." 
We have seen that heart-beat, although essential to, is not 
characteristic of extra-uterine life, and, consequently, does not 
attach to it any feature or condition of independence which 
did not belong to foetal life; that division of the umbilical 
cord may destroy conditions of foetal life, but that it is not, in 
any sense, a factor, sign, or condition of independent extra- 
uterine life; and finally, that beating of the heart, of itself, 
will not do for a test sign of life in the animal to which it 
belongs. It, therefore, appears that the phenomenon, " con- 
tinuance of the heart's action after severing of the umbilical 
cord," to which, in the afore-mentioned cases, medical 
experts and courts have attached so much importance, was 
not evidence of " independent life," but was probably simply 
the last flickering of an extinct fcetal life. 
What is false in science'cannot be a fact in law ; and although 
legislative bodies may yet declare the presence of circulation 
and pulmonary respiration, in some extreme cases, such as 
deliveries at non-viable ages, too narrow a base upon which to 
establish the civil rights of infants, I feel assured that, before 
long, the courts must hold that less than this is not, in any case, 
sufficiently broad. All our knowledge of life is purely 
phenomenal. Of what life is in itself, that is apart from 
its manifestations, wre philosophically know nothing. It is, 
therefore, in the present state of science, impossible to draw 
the line and mark accurately where dependence ceases and 
indepenence begins. I h ave endeavored, consequently, simply 
to establish a practical distinction based upon some of the 
differential phenomena of foetal and extra-uterine life.