An old man came forward and bowed and said: "Reporting to the lord, it was a villain who investigated."

Leng Yi slowly turned around and looked at him: "Come here, you said earlier that there was a crack in the head of the deceased. Is this the crack you saw?" Leng Yi pointed at the head of the deceased and got the narrow crack.

The old man stepped forward to check and nodded: "That's the crack."

"Did you incise this scalp too?"

"Yes." The old man already felt that the county magistrate's words did not sound like praise, and he was a little panicked. He quickly explained: "It's like this. At that time, the father of the deceased asked to open the coffin for an autopsy. After opening the coffin, he asked me if there were any clues.

.I said no. He asked about the head? I also said no. He said could he use an iron rod or something like that and wrap it with cloth, hit the head, and beat the person to death without leaving any traces? Villain

I didn't think so, but I couldn't stand his pleading, so I took the wash money and cut open the scalp of the deceased. Sure enough, I found the crack on the head of the deceased. That's why I told the old man that someone had used a heavy object on the head of the deceased.

Cracks caused by blows.”

Leng Yi snorted, pointed to the intact scalp of the deceased, and asked: "You are also an old man. You should have inspected the corpses of many murder cases. This county asks you, have you ever seen a heavy object hit the head, and the scalp is not broken?"

Is it hematoma?"

The old man had a look of fear on his face and said: "The old man clearly knows that there is no such situation. A heavy blow will definitely break the scalp, or at least form a hematoma. At that time, the villain also told the father of the deceased about this clue, but the old man insisted on it.

He refused to listen and only said that his son was killed by a heavy blow on the head by his daughter-in-law. Then he ran to the elder, knelt and kowtowed and cried. Although the villain felt that his scalp was a little strange, but when he saw the crack in the skull, he felt that it was true.

It may be that as the father of the deceased said, wrapping it with something soft and then hitting it hard may not cause scalp lacerations or hematomas. So, just say that he was murdered. Otherwise, how could it appear on the skull?

Where are the cracks?”

Leng Yi shook his head and said: "This is not a crack caused by a heavy blow. This crack is the coronal suture of the skull. It is there originally. It is the expansion of the gas in the skull after death, which opens the skull."

The coronal suture opened this gap, which is different from the shape of the linear fracture of the skull caused by a heavy impact."

Having said that, Leng Yi secretly sighed in his heart that the level of forensic medicine in ancient times was really too backward, especially now that it was the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, and the first forensic medicine work in China and even the world, "The Record of Clearing Wrongs" written by the criminal officer Song Ci, appeared.

The time was the late Southern Song Dynasty. Therefore, in my current era, there is no relatively scientific forensic medicine guidance book to guide autopsies. All judgments are based on personal experience, and errors are bound to occur.

Seeing that although the authors nodded one after another, they all looked suspicious, Leng Yi knew that they actually did not believe it in their hearts. It seemed that facts could only speak louder than words. Only by finding strong evidence could these authors be convinced.

Only then can the stubborn family members of the deceased be persuaded.

Leng Yi turned to Master Dong and said, "There should be mass graves in our county to bury the refugees and unknown persons who died of freezing and starvation, right?"

"Yes, it's not far ahead."

A man said: "It just so happened that a few days ago there was a heavy snowstorm and severe cold. Many beggars living on the streets froze to death. Are they buried somewhere?"

Leng Yi said "oh" and said to Mr. Dong: "This county wants to prove the situation just mentioned and open the coffins of those people for autopsy. Is that okay?"

"Yes. As long as there is no unknown corpse of the suffering master, if the palm seal official deems it necessary to open the coffin for an autopsy, he can directly open the coffin and conduct an autopsy."

"Okay then, let's go somewhere, dig up the cemetery and find a few corpses."

After that, he asked the widowers to carry the coffin and march toward the graveyard. The onlookers watched the excitement from a distance and saw the widowers carrying the coffin. They didn't know what was going on, so they followed the chaos to the graveyard.

Leng Yi asked his disciples to dig up several graves, dig out the corpses, cut open the scalps, and found at least two corpses with cracked coronal sutures and the same shape as the previous deceased!

The coroners looked at each other. Ancient autopsies generally did not dissect corpses. Therefore, although they had done autopsy work for many years, they had not cut open the scalp to see the condition of the skull, so they did not understand this basic forensic knowledge. Now Leng Yi proved to

After they saw it, they realized that this was indeed the case.

Both Master Dong and Wu Baotou were stunned. Yin Jiu and Cheng Luojie, who served as bodyguards, were also very surprised. Cheng Luojie, the personal bodyguard, followed Leng Yi closely and asked in a low voice: "Master, how do you know

These?"

Leng Yi proudly stroked the short beard on his chin and said in an official tone: "This county has loved many miscellaneous books, and one of them talks about how to conduct autopsies. I remember that this was mentioned, but I am actually not sure about it.

So I opened the coffin in this mass grave and conducted an autopsy to verify that it was indeed the case. Haha."

Everyone immediately believed it, and they all secretly gave it a thumbs up, praising the county magistrate for being really knowledgeable and capable of memorizing it. He had even read this kind of book, which was really incredible.

Mr. Dong, who was recording the whole coffin-opening and autopsy process, asked: "Then how did the deceased die?"

"The county will re-examine the body thoroughly to see if there are any signs of foul play. Move the body out!"

Several workers helped to lift Li's husband's body out of the coffin and put it on the ground. Leng Yi performed a physical examination on the body. He was a criminal police officer, not a forensic doctor, and he had only learned basic forensic medicine.

Knowledge, so he is not good at autopsy. However, whether the death was caused by violence can often be found through physical examination. Leng Yi, as a criminal police officer, has this knowledge of superficial autopsy.

After some inspection, no wounds were found on the body surface of the deceased, ruling out the possibility of violent death. The last remaining question was whether it was poisoning.

To verify whether the body was poisoned, it must be convincing by a method recognized by the ancients. Of course, this method must be scientific. Leng Yi asked the monks: "How did you test whether the corpse died of poisoning?"

The old man said hurriedly: "Use a silver needle to explore the throat, or pierce and insert it into the stomach for examination. As long as the silver needle turns black, it can be proved."

Leng Yi nodded. Ancient poisons were generally arsenic. Due to the low level of ancient arsenic production technology, the refined arsenic often contained sulfur or sulfide. Sulfur and silver would react chemically, forming a layer of black sulfide on the surface of the silver needle.

Silver was thus proven to be poisonous. This method was relatively scientific under ancient conditions, so it has been used for more than a thousand years.

However, this method has a high error rate. Because anything containing sulfur can turn the silver needle black and indicate that it is poisonous. However, if there are highly toxic poisonous mushrooms, etc., because they do not contain sulfur, the silver needle will not turn black.

It is black and the hint is non-toxic, so it is easy for wrong cases to occur.

There is a certain scientific basis for using silver needles to test whether a fresh corpse has been poisoned by arsenic. However, if the corpse is already in a state of intoxication, then using this method will go wrong, because the arsenic produced by normal corpses is arsenic poisoning.

The gas contains hydrogen sulfide, which will turn the silver needle black and indicate poisoning.

Leng Yi glanced at several people, raised his voice, and said: "It is feasible to use a silver needle to detect poisoning on a recently deceased corpse. However, the miscellaneous book on autopsy I read said that when the corpse decomposes,

, will produce corpse poison, and corpse poison will also turn the silver needle black.—Get the silver needle!"

A coworker hurriedly took out a tube of silver needles and handed them to Leng Yi. Leng Yi inserted silver needles into the throats and stomachs of several newly excavated unknown corpses that were rotting. Sure enough, all of them turned black.

At this time, everyone looked at Leng Yi with admiration, feeling that the young magistrate was really knowledgeable and everything he said was right.

Cheng Luojie's eyes became complicated when she looked at Leng Yi, and there was a little tenderness in her surprise.

Leng Yi didn't look at her and continued: "So, using a silver needle to detect the rotten corpse cannot prove anything. We can use other methods, such as taking out the contents of the deceased's stomach and washing them

, wash away the corpse poison and then test it. Of course, you can do a comparative test, that is, clean the contents of the stomachs of other normal dead corpses and then test them. By comparing the two, you can know whether they were poisoned."

The several men, Master Dong, and Yin Jiu all nodded slowly, feeling that Leng Yi's statement was very insightful.

c!~!
Chapter completed!