The principles and practice of medical jurisprudence / by the late Alfred Swaine Taylor.

  • Alfred Swaine Taylor
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The principles and practice of medical jurisprudence / by the late Alfred Swaine Taylor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

    24/778 (page 2)
    EXPERIENCED PHYSICIANS AND that a medical jurist should have a theoretical and practical knowledge of all branches of the profession, a large range of experience, and the rare power of adapting his knowledge and experience to emergencies. He should be able to elucidate any difficult medico-legal question which may arise, and be prepared at all times to make a cautious selection of such medical facts, and a proper application of such medical principles, as may be necessary to enable a judge to place the subject in an intelligible light before the jury, and to enable a jury to arrive at a just conclusion. Medico-legal knowledge does not consist so much in the acquisition of facts as in the power of arranging them, and in applying the conclusions to which they lead to the purposes of the law. A man may be a most skilful surgeon, or a most experienced physician; his mind may be well stored with professional information; yet if he is unable by the use of simple language to make his ideas known to others, his knowledge will be of no avail. One far below him in professional standing and experience may make a better medical witness. The variety of subjects in which a medical jurist is required to have knowledge and experience may alarm a student of medicine, and lead him to suppose that, as he cannot make himself perfectly acquainted with all, he may well forego the labour of prej)aring himself in any. But this would be taking an erroneous view of his position. This description of the qualifications necessary to constitute a normal witness in a court of law must not deter him from entering on the study. It is assuredly beyond the mental power of any individual that he should be at the same time profoundly versed in all the principles of medicine and jurisprudence, and that he should be able to answer all possible questions, and encounter and remove all medical difficulties that may occur during the trial of a civil or criminal case. All that the law expects from a medical man is a fair average knowledge, not merely of his profession but of that which falls more peculiarly under the province of a medical witness. There can be no doubt that the more perfectly a man has made himself master of his profession, the better will he be fitted to follow the principles and apply himself to the practice of medical jurisprudence ; but he must divest him- self of the notion that these principles can be spontaneously acquired, or that they are necessarily derived from the study of those isolated branches of medicine upon which medical jurisprudence is based. The materials for the medical jurist undoubtedly exist in these collateral sciences: but they I'equire to be assorted, selected, and moulded into shape, before they can be applied to any useful purpose. A man may be well qualified to practise as a physician or surgeon, and yet find himself deficient when called upon to act as a medical witness. There was no doubt that John Hunter stood in his time at the very head of his profession, and that none could have profited more by industry and experience. If sound pro- fessional knowledge could have qualified any man to act as a medical witness, we should assuredly be justified in pointing to him as an example; and yet this great man, when summoned to give evidence in 1781 on a memorable trial for poisoning, was obliged to confess that he was unable to give a satisfactory answer to the important question put to him. Hunter was the only professional witness called on the part of the prisoner to rebut the charge of poisoning the deceased by laurel-water. His cross- examination, however, rather strengthened the case for the prosecution ; and the final question put by the court was: ' Give your opinion, in the best manner you can, one way or the other, whether, upon the whole of the symptoms described, the death proceeded from the medicine (laurel- water), or any other cause ? ' ^. ' I do not mean to equivocate; but when I tell the sentiments of my own mind, what I feel at the time, I can give