The legal foundations of post-mortem examinations in early modern Flanders : princely legislation, custom, doctrine and judicial practice

Because of its manifold references to the consultation of medical experts in homicide and infanticide cases, the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1532) is often regarded as an important milestone in the development of early modern forensic medicine. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the County of Flanders, a principality within the Habsburg Netherlands, witnessed a similar upsurge in the production of normative and doctrinal texts aiming to regulate forensic activities. Drawing on princely legislation, local customary law and the writings of the jurists Filips Wielant and Joos de Damhouder, this contribution will compare the corpus of Flemish legal texts with its practical application by the myriad of law courts operating within the county. As the princely legislation only laid out a general framework, the regulation of the forensic post-mortem was essentially an issue of local governance. The local nature of forensic practices should however not be overestimated. Evidence from preserved post-mortem reports demonstrates that there were more similarities between towns and regions within the county than actual differences

Ethanol exposure increases mutation rate through error-prone polymerases

International audienceEthanol is a ubiquitous environmental stressor that is toxic to all lifeforms. Here, we use the model eukaryote Saccharomyces cerevisiae to show that exposure to sublethal ethanol concentrations causes DNA replication stress and an increased mutation rate. Specifically, we find that ethanol slows down replication and affects localization of Mrc1, a conserved protein that helps stabilize the replisome. In addition, ethanol exposure also results in the recruitment of error-prone DNA polymerases to the replication fork. Interestingly, preventing this recruitment through mutagenesis of the PCNA/Pol30 polymerase clamp or deleting specific error-prone polymerases abolishes the mutagenic effect of ethanol. Taken together, this suggests that the mutagenic effect depends on a complex mechanism, where dysfunctional replication forks lead to recruitment of error-prone polymerases. Apart from providing a general mechanistic framework for the mutagenic effect of ethanol, our findings may also provide a route to better understand and prevent ethanol-associated carcinogenesis in higher eukaryotes

Hanged bodies and melancholic minds : medical practitioners and the forensic investigation of suicide in early modern Flanders

This article analyses some major developments in the forensic investigation of suicide in early modern Flanders by focussing on the two main roles that medical practitioners played in suicide proceedings. First, they were asked to examine the corpses of alleged suicides in order to establish the actual cause of death and possibly unmask murders that were staged as suicides by hanging — a much-debated topic in the early modern medico-legal literature. Second, physicians and surgeons were increasingly required to attest to the mental state of suicides prior to their death, and in this way they underpinned the growing judicial leniency that eventually culminated in the official decriminalisation of suicide in 1782. Although medical evidence of insanity was frequently employed in eighteenth-century suicide trials, it never became a routine feature of all Flemish suicide proceedings. Medical practitioners only testified regarding this matter if they possessed personal knowledge of a suicide’s mental condition sufficient for giving a proper opinion as to his or her purported madness. Hence, while Flemish physicians and surgeons generally linked suicide to mental derangement, they were not the major driving force behind the final decriminalisation of self-murder

Hanged Bodies and Melancholic Minds

This article analyses some major developments in the forensic investigation of suicide in early modern Flanders by focussing on the two main roles that medical practitioners played in suicide proceedings. First, they were asked to examine the corpses of alleged suicides in order to establish the actual cause of death and possibly unmask murders that were staged as suicides by hanging — a much-debated topic in the early modern medico-legal literature. Second, physicians and surgeons were increasingly required to attest to the mental state of suicides prior to their death, and in this way they underpinned the growing judicial leniency that eventually culminated in the official decriminalisation of suicide in 1782. Although medical evidence of insanity was frequently employed in eighteenth-century suicide trials, it never became a routine feature of all Flemish suicide proceedings. Medical practitioners only testified regarding this matter if they possessed personal knowledge of a suicide’s mental condition sufficient for giving a proper opinion as to his or her purported madness. Hence, while Flemish physicians and surgeons generally linked suicide to mental derangement, they were not the major driving force behind the final decriminalisation of self-murder.Cet article analyse certains développements majeurs dans l’investigation médico-légale des suicides au comté de Flandre pendant l’époque moderne. Deux des principaux rôles que les experts médicaux ont joués dans les procédures pour suicide sont distingués. Tout d’abord, ils étaient censés examiner les cadavres de présumés suicidés afin d’établir la cause réelle de la mort et de démasquer éventuellement des meurtres mis en scène comme des suicides par pendaison – un sujet très controversé dans la littérature médico-légale de l’époque. Deuxièmement, les médecins et chirurgiens flamands étaient de plus en plus souvent amenés à faire une déposition sur l’état mental des suicidés avant leur mort. Leurs déclarations étayaient la clémence judiciaire croissante qui a finalement abouti à la dépénalisation officielle du suicide en 1782. Bien que les preuves médicales de l’aliénation mentale aient été fréquemment utilisées dans les procès pour suicide au XVIIIe siècle, elles ne sont cependant jamais devenues un élément routinier de ces procédures judiciaires. Les experts médicaux ne témoignaient à ce sujet que s’ils avaient une connaissance personnelle de l’état mental d’un suicidé suffisante pour donner un avis correct sur sa prétendue folie. Par conséquent, si les médecins et chirurgiens flamands ont généralement associé le suicide à des troubles mentaux, ils n’ont pas été les principaux protagonistes de la dépénalisation du suicide

Vermoorde onschuld : medische expertise en het gerechtelijk onderzoek naar kindermoord in het graafschap Vlaanderen (zeventiende-achttiende eeuw)

This article examines the role of medical expertise in the forensic investigation of infanticide in early modern Flanders. Drawing on a collection of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century post-mortem reports, conserved in the archives of three Flemish criminal courts (the Raad van Vlaanderen, the bench of aldermen of Ghent, and the feudal court of the Land van Waas), this study explains how medical practitioners attempted to establish whether or not a dead infant had in fact been born alive, and how they eventually decided that a live newborn had met a violent end. Furthermore, it also discusses the impact of medical observations on the sentences pronounced against mothers who were suspect-ed of having killed their infants. In general, medico-legal considerations had a mitigating effect on the prosecution of infanticide by providing early modern judges with a wide array of extenuating circumstances. Nevertheless, the incriminating potential of medical evidence was seriously hampered by traditional evidentiary standards that considered the accused’s confession a necessary prerequisite for pronouncing the death penalty