A manual of medical jurisprudence and state medicine, compiled from the latest legal and medical works, of Beck, Paris, Christison, Fodere, Orfila, etc. ... Intended for the use of legislators, barristers, magistrates, coroners, private gentlemen, jurors, and medical practitioners. Containing part I. Medical ethics ... Part II. Laws relating to the medical profession ... Part III. Medical jurisprudence and state medicine ... Part IV. Laws relating to the preservation of public health / By Michael Ryan.

Michael Ryan

Date:: 1836

Credit: A manual of medical jurisprudence and state medicine, compiled from the latest legal and medical works, of Beck, Paris, Christison, Fodere, Orfila, etc. ... Intended for the use of legislators, barristers, magistrates, coroners, private gentlemen, jurors, and medical practitioners. Containing part I. Medical ethics ... Part II. Laws relating to the medical profession ... Part III. Medical jurisprudence and state medicine ... Part IV. Laws relating to the preservation of public health / By Michael Ryan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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It must be unnecessary to enter into serious proofs of the importance of consultations. ‘The mere want of medical assistance, says the distinguished physician whom I have just quoted, is in many cases so bad, as to imply almost certainly very pernicious, if not fatal consequences. In such cases, to withhold it voluntarily would be almost as criminal _as to suffer a wretch to perish by withholding food from him. This point being proved, a few words may be said on the utility of numerous consultations. ‘The opinion of Dr. James G. is so excellent upon this topic, that it must be quoted. ** With respect to physicians and surgeons both, and their patients, it is plain that all the good that can be expected from a consultation may be obtained from one of two, or three, or four, at the utmost, at least as well as from one ten times as numerous; and I should think it almost as plain, that much of that good may be prevented, and much positive evil done, by a very numerous consultation. “On this point I presume, without vanity, to know as much as most men. Vor full half of my life, I have been a professor of physic in the University of Edinburgh, during which time consultations have been a great part of my busi- ness, to the number certainly of some thousands. Nineteen times out of twenty, at least, ] have been the youngest physi- cian of the consultation; and, of course, when any written directions were to be given to the patient, have had the honour to put them in writing, to the number, I presume, of two or three hundred at least. I can say with confidence, in point of fact, that I never knew any good come of a very numerous consultation; and I doubt much, whether any physician or surgeon of competent experience will give a different account, of the result ef what he has observed. ‘The conduct of physi- cians and surgeons, when themselves or any of their families are sick, affords a still better proof and illustration of the same truth, and is indeed supreme and decisive authority with respect to what is useful, or what is useless, or worse than useless, in medical consultations. With us all considerations of economy are out of the question. Bad as we may be thought, we are not such cannibals as to prey on one another. We may all have, for nothing, to ourselves and our families,

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