The claims of forensic medicine : being the introductory lecture delivered in the University of London, on Monday, May 11, 1829 / by John Gordon Smith.
- John Gordon Smith
- Date:
- 1829
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The claims of forensic medicine : being the introductory lecture delivered in the University of London, on Monday, May 11, 1829 / by John Gordon Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.
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![more to its credit were the example here to be set. I have in my hand a printed catalogue of about 10,000 volumes which have been published in this department; and as the book belongs to the library of the University, you can verify the statement at your leisure. I have said that Medical Jurisprudence is every body's business, which leads me to allude, in the third place, to its importance. What is it ? What does it consist off What are the duties which it imposes?—Brief answers to these queries will furnish all that it may be necessary to advance under the head of its importance, at the present moment. ]. What is it ?—A collateral, but distinct application of the knowledge required for the treatment and cure of dis- ease to the purposes of the due administration of justice and conservation of the public health. Now, justice is the concern of every member of a civilized community, either as its dispenser or receiver ; and whenever the issue turns upon a question of anatomy, physiology, pathology, or chemistry, the practitioner of the healing art is obviously the proper guide to an accurate decision. When such a one is brought forward for this purpose, he is the representative of a most important as well as learned body, and owes it to his brethren neither to disgrace them nor himself. He is looked to with the greatest anxiety for correct statements as to the real nature and extent of professional knowledge; and such opinions he must deliver, or will be made to deliver, in simple and explicit terms. Judge and counsel, on these occasions, profess to be uninstructed, and juries are unquestionably so. IS or is it possible for the witnesses to prepare the minds of these for a scientific knowledge of the matter by the advantageous medium of a previous and elaborate course of instruction. The point must be come to at once, and, made clear in very few words. Nothing, in the course of my attendance in these prac- tical schools of medical evidence, has struck me more forcibly, or pleased me so much, as the rapidity and precision with which the gentlemen of the law arrive at the object wanted, and the utter separation which they create between the point](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2146327x_0009.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
