FCETITS (Lat.). In Medical Jurispru dence. An unborn child. An infant in ventre sa mere.
2. Until about the middle of the fourth month it is called embryo. At that time the development of the principal organs begins to be evident and they present something of their mature form.
Although it is often important to know the age of the foetus, there is great difficulty in ascertain ing the fact with the precision required in courts of law. We are confident that nothing on this subject can be learned solely from its weight, size, or progress towards maturity.
The great difference between children at birth, its regards their weight and size, is an indication of their condition while within the womb, and is a sufficient evidence that nothing can be decided as to the age of therfoetus by its weight and size at different periods of its existence.
3. Thousands of healthy , infants have been weighed immediately after birth, and the extremes have been found to be two end eighteen pounds. It is very rare indeed to find any weighing as little as two pounds, but by no means uncommon to find them weighing four pounds. So it is with the length, which varies as mach as that of the adult does from the average height of the race.
Neither can any thing positive be learned from the progress of development; for although the con dition of the bones, cartilages, and other parts will generally mark with tolerable accuracy the age of a healthy fmtus, yet an uncertainty will arise when it is found to be unhealthy. It has been clearly proved, by numerous dissections of new-born chil dren, that the foetus is subject to diseases which interfere with the proper formation of parts, exhi biting traces of previous departure from health, which bad interfered with the proper formation of parts and arrested the process of development.
4. Interesting as the different periods of deve lopment may be to the philosophical inquirer, they cannot be of much value in legal inquiries, from their extreme uncertainty in denoting precisely the age of the foetus by unerring conditions.
An approximation may be had by grouping all the facts connected with the history of the concep tion, with the progress of the ovum to maturity. See Dunglison, Human Physiology, 391 ; 1 Beck, Med. Jur. 239; Billord on Infants, Stewart trans. 36, 37, and App.; Ryan, Med. Jur. 137; 1 Chitty, Med. Jur. 403; Dean, Med. Jur. And see the arti cles BIRTH; DEAD-BORN ; FCETICIDE; IN VENTRE SA MERE; INFANTICIDE; LIFE; QUICK WITH CHILD.
( spelled, also, follonote, folemote, and jolcgemote; from jolt, people, and gemote, an assembly).
• A general assembly of the people in a town, burgh, or shire.
The term was used to denote a court or judicial tribunal among the Saxons. which possessed sub stantially the powers afterwards exercised by the county courts and sheriff s tou•n. These powers embraced the settlement of small claims, taking the oath of allegiance, preserving the laws, and making the necessary arrangements for the pre servation of safety, peace, and the public weal. It appears that complaints were to be made before the folk-gemote held in London annually, of any mismanagement by the mayor and aldermen of that city. It was called, also, a barg-gentofe when held in a burgh, and when held for a county. See Manwood, For. Laws ; Spelman,, Gloss.; De Brady, Gloss.; Cunningham, Law Diet.