An old servant stepped forward and bowed down and said, "Back to the old man, it was the villain who investigated." ”

Leng Yi slowly turned around and looked at him: "Come here, you said earlier that there is a crack in the deceased's head, is this crack you see?" Leng Yi pointed to the deceased's skull and got a narrow crack.

The old man stepped forward to check and nodded: "It's this crack." ”

"You cut this scalp too?"

"Yes." The old man already felt that the county master's words did not seem like praise, and he was a little frightened, so he hurriedly explained: "That's the case, at that time, the deceased's father asked for an autopsy, and after the coffin was opened, he asked me if there was any clue. I said no. What about the head, he asked? I also said no. He said that it would be wrapped in a cloth with an iron rod or something, hit the head and beat the person to death, but it would not leave a trace? The villain didn't think so, but he couldn't stand his pleading, and took the money for washing his hands, so he cut open the deceased's scalp, and sure enough, he found this crack in the deceased's head. That's why I told the old man that the deceased's head had a crack caused by being hit with a heavy object. ”

Leng Yi snorted, pointed to the intact scalp of the deceased, and asked, "You are also an old man, you should have investigated many murder corpses." The county asks you, have you ever seen a heavy object hit on the head, and the scalp is not broken and there is no hematoma? ”

The old man looked frightened and said, "Master Mingjian." There is no such situation. With a heavy blow, the scalp will inevitably rupture, or at least a hematoma will form. At that time, the villain also told the deceased's father about this, but the old man insisted on not listening, only saying that his son was killed by his daughter-in-law who hit him on the head. So he ran to the old man and knelt down and kowtowed and cried. Although the villain felt that the scalp was a little strange, when he saw the crack in the skull, he felt that it might really be as the deceased's father said, wrapped in something soft and then hit hard, which may not cause a scalp crack or hematoma. So, just, it was said that he was murdered. Otherwise, how could there be a crack in the skull? ”

Leng Yi shook his head and said: "This is not a crack formed by a heavy blow, this crack is the coronal slit of the skull, which is already there, it is the [***] gas in the skull after the death of a person expands, and the coronal slit of the skull is opened, which is the crack is different from the shape of the fracture of the skull line caused by the blow of the heavy object." ”

After all, Leng Yi sighed in his heart, the level of forensic medicine in ancient times was really too backward, especially now is the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, and the first forensic science work in China and even in the world, the "Record of Clearing Grievances" by the criminal officer Song Ci appeared at the end of the Southern Song Dynasty. Therefore, in the era I am in now, there is no relatively scientific forensic science guidance book to guide the autopsy, and it is all judged by personal experience, and it will definitely be wrong.

Seeing that although the servants nodded one after another, they showed suspicious eyes one by one, Leng Yi knew that they actually didn't believe it in their hearts. It seems that only facts speak louder than words. Only by finding strong evidence can we convince these servants and the stubborn families of the deceased.

Leng Yi turned to Master Dong and said, "There should be mass graves in our county to bury those homeless people who froze to death and starved to death and unknown people, right?" ”

"Yes, not far ahead."

One said: "It just so happened that a few days ago, the snowstorm was very cold, and many beggars living on the streets froze to death. Where is it buried. ”

Leng Yi sighed and said to Master Dong: "This county wants to use proof of the situation just mentioned, and it is okay to open the coffins of those people for autopsy?" ”

"Yes. As long as there is no nameless corpse of the bitter master, the palm seal officer thinks that it is necessary to open the coffin for an autopsy, and he can open the coffin for an autopsy. ”

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

After that, let the servants carry the coffin and go to the mass grave, and the onlookers watched the excitement from a distance, and saw the servants carrying the coffin.

Leng Yi asked Qi Zuo to dig up several graves, dig up the corpses, cut open the scalp, and found at least two corpses, the coronal cracks of the skulls were cracked, and the shape was the same as that of the previous deceased!

The servants looked at each other, and in ancient times, autopsies generally did not dissect corpses, so although they had done autopsy work for many years, they had not dissected the scalp and seen the skull, so they did not understand this basic forensic knowledge. Now that Leng Yi proved it to them, he realized that there was indeed such a thing.

Master Dong and Wu Zhutou were dumbfounded. Including Yin Eagle and Cheng Luojie, who served as guards, they were also very surprised. The personal guard Cheng Luojie kept following Leng Yi closely, and asked in a low voice, "Master, how do you know this?" ”

Leng Yi proudly touched the short beard on his chin, and said in an official tone: "This county loves to read, and I have read a lot of miscellaneous books before, one of which is about how to conduct an autopsy. Huh"

A group of people immediately believed it, and secretly picked their thumbs one by one, and praised the county master for being really well-read and strong, and even read this kind of book, which is really amazing.

Master Dong, who was recording the entire opening of the coffin and the autopsy next to him, asked, "Then how did the deceased die?" ”

"The county took a fresh look at the bodies to see if there were any signs of murder. Get the body out! ”

A few servants helped to lift the body of Li's husband out of the coffin and put it on the ground, and Leng Yi conducted a body surface examination on the body. He is a criminal policeman, not a forensic doctor, and he has only learned basic forensic knowledge, so he is not good at autopsy, but whether it is violent or not, in many cases can be found from the body surface examination, this kind of knowledge of body surface autopsy, Leng Yi, as a criminal policeman, has it.

After some inspection, no trauma was found on the body surface of the deceased, ruling out the possibility of violent death. In the end, it remains to be poisoned or not.

To verify whether poisoning is indicated, it must be convincing in a method that the ancients could approve, and of course, this method must also be scientific. Leng Yi asked, "How did you test whether the corpse was poisoned and died?" ”

The old man hurriedly said: "Probe the throat with a silver needle, or puncture and insert it into the stomach for examination, as long as the silver needle is black, it can be proved." ”

Leng Yi nodded, the ancient poison was generally arsenic, due to the low level of arsenic production technology in ancient times, the refined arsenic often contained sulfur or sulfide. Sulfur reacts with silver to form a black layer of silver sulfide on the surface of the silver needle, which proves to be toxic. This method was relatively scientific under ancient conditions, so it has been used for more than a thousand years.

However, this method has a large error rate. Because anything that contains sulfur can make the silver needle black and indicate poison, and poisonous mushrooms that are highly poisonous, because they do not contain sulfur, the silver needle will not turn black, but indicate that it is not poisonous, which is prone to wrongful convictions.

There is a certain scientific surname to use a silver needle to test whether the fresh corpse that has just died is arsenic poisoning, but if the corpse is already in a [***] state, and then use this method, it will be wrong, because the [***] gas produced by the normal corpse [***] contains hydrogen sulfide, which will make the silver needle black and indicate poisoning.

Leng Yi glanced at a few pretentious acts, raised his voice, and said: "It is feasible for the silver needle to probe the corpse of the just dead to test whether it is poisoned, but the miscellaneous book on autopsy I read says that when the corpse decomposes, it will produce corpse poison, and the corpse poison will also make the silver needle black." - Fetch the silver needle! ”

One of them hurriedly took out a tube of silver needles and handed it to Leng Yi. Leng Yi pierced silver needles in the throats and stomachs of several nameless corpses that were decomposing newly dug up, and sure enough, they all turned black.

At this moment, everyone looked at Leng Yi with reverence, and felt that this young magistrate was really knowledgeable, and what he said was right.

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

Leng Yi didn't look at her and continued: "Therefore, for the corpse that has already decomposed, it will not be possible to prove anything wrong with the silver needle. We can use other methods, such as taking out the contents of the deceased's stomach, washing it, and then examining it after washing off the corpse poison. Of course, you can do a comparative test, that is, the contents of the stomach of other corpses that died normally are also cleaned and examined, and the two can be compared to know whether they are poisoned. ”

A few servants and Master Dong and Yin Eagle all nodded slowly, feeling that Leng Yi's statement was very insightful.