A manual of medical jurisprudence, compiled from the best medical and legal works comprising an account of I. The ethics of the medical profession; II. The charters and statutes relating to the faculty; and, III. All medico-legal questions, with the latest decisions: being an analysis of a course of lectures on forensic medicine, annually delivered in London. And intended as a compendium for the use of barristers, solicitors, magistrates, coroners, and medical practitioners / by Michael Ryan.

Michael Ryan

Date:: 1831

Credit: A manual of medical jurisprudence, compiled from the best medical and legal works comprising an account of I. The ethics of the medical profession; II. The charters and statutes relating to the faculty; and, III. All medico-legal questions, with the latest decisions: being an analysis of a course of lectures on forensic medicine, annually delivered in London. And intended as a compendium for the use of barristers, solicitors, magistrates, coroners, and medical practitioners / by Michael Ryan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

27/336 page 5

and this fact has been highly conducive to the discovery of their effects as therapeutic agents. In confirmation of the validity of this position, I may observe that the direct para- lysis caused by opium when applied to muscular tissue, ex plains its efficacy in spasmodic affections. The similar ef- fects of acetate of lead explain the efficacy of that medicine in dysentery; the stimulating effects of nux vomica on the -spinal cord and nerves, led to its employment in the va- rious forms of palsy, in which it has the best effects, ac- cording to the testimony of Dr. Bardsley of Manchester, and others. It is unnecessary to multiply citations on this point, for it is universally admitted that we owe all our new and va- luable medicines to the science of toxicology. This science is now brought to a state of certainty, by the great research, the acute discrimination and the repeated observation of Pro- fessor Christison of Edinburgh, whose splendid work on the subject is an honour to the medical literature of the country, and will be esteemed a work of authority and reference. It will assist in superseding the present absurd exclusion of re- ference to authorities, from the system of medical evidence in this part of the country. But an immense number of other departments as interesting as toxicology are included in state medicine, or as it is improperly called medical jurispru- dence. But first, itis right to explain the difference between the terms State Medicine and Medical Jurisprudence. The majority of writers apply the terms political medicine, state medicine, public medicine, public hygiene or police of health, and medical police to the acts of a government, legisla- ture and magistracy, for the conservation of the public health, and for the legislation relating to the practice of the medical profession. Medical jurisprudence, legal, forensic, juridical and judici- ary medicine, is a science by which medicine and its colla- teral branches are rendered subservient to the elucidation of various civil and criminal cases during judical inquiry. Dr. Gordon Smith divides the subject into two divisions : 1. Forensic Meprorne ; or the duty of the practitioner in Courts of Justice. Il. Mepicat Po ice, or the duty of the practitioner in co- operation with the legislature. | The Germans include both these divisions in the term state medicine. In the London University some confusion has ex- isted in the minds of students in reference to the professorship of jurisprudence, and of medical jurisprudence; and a large portion of the public find it difficult to distinguish the differ- ence, which would be obviated by the substitution of state medicine for the latter. Within a brief period a lawyer in

Licence and re-use

Contents