Odger's English Common Law

HOMICIDE OR CAUSING DEATH. 269
either by administering or applying something, or by some
kind of physical contact on the part of the prisoner or some
agent of his.
Thus, where a man procured! the death of another] by fahely accusing
him of a capital crime and giving perjured evidence to support his charge,
he was held not to have caused the death. 1
So, if a man sent an alarming
telegram to a woman who had a weak heart, and she died from the shock,
he has not caused her death. 2
But where there is any direct physical impact which does
cause death, the fact that such a result was highly improbable
and could not reasonably have been anticipated by the actor,
is in law immaterial. An impact, which in the ordinary
course of things could not possibly prove fatal, may yet cause
death, if the person struck be in a morbid condition ;
and the
person striking the blow will be guilty of homicide,'although
he was not aware of the condition of health of the deceased.
Every man is liable for the natural andjj necessary conse-
quences of any unlawful act done by him, although he could
not have foreseen them, 3 but not for consequences which are
merely accidental. 4
The death must