Suicide through Stabbing, 1898. Physician who had taken his life in a hotel. The body was covered with freshly coagulated blood, and clothed only with a shirt, which was saturated with blood. Extensive blood-marks reached from the body to the bed, the covering of which was likewise saturated with blood, and beside which a large, open pocket-knife lay. After cleansing the body six stab-wounds were recognized. Of these one was situated in the right side of the neck, the other five on the anterior surface of the chest. That it was a case of suicide was demonstrated by the external circumstances and all the postmortem findings. It was clear that the deceased had produced the wounds while in bed, and that he had then attempted to arise and go to the door, where he fell. The opened and uninjured shirt, the symmetric disposition of the openings of the stab-wounds and of the course of the canal of the wounds, and the proximity of the wounds of the chest were more indicative of suicide than of murder. The motive for committing the deed may have been the tuberculous disease. Annotated from Eduard Ritter von Hofmann, M.D., Atlas of Legal Medicine.