An analysis of medical evidence : comprising directions for practitioners in the view of becoming witnesses in courts of justice, and an appendix of professional testimony / By John Gordon Smith, M.D.

  • John Gordon Smith
Date:
1825
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An analysis of medical evidence : comprising directions for practitioners in the view of becoming witnesses in courts of justice, and an appendix of professional testimony / By John Gordon Smith, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    time to prepare you for death; and, therefore, I hope you will improve your time, for the judgment is past, and will be executed soon after your ilclivery. PATERNITY. Case f)/* Alexander Whistei.o, fried at New York in 1808*. Lhci/ Williams, a mulatto, fathered a child on WImtelo, a negro; and the officers, whose duty it was to relieve the public from the charge of burthens of that nature, prosecuted tlie de- fendant before the mayor, recorder, and several aldermen of New York. It is necessary to give part of her evidence, for the perfect understanding of the allusions that abound in the sequel. Lucy Williams sworn. Do you know Alexander Whistclo ? Yes. * * * He carried me to a bad house, and locked the door. I scuffled with him a long time, but, at last, he worried me out. * When was the child born ? The 25d January, 1807. * * (Cross-examined.) * * * * When did you first perceive that you were pregnant ? Before his return. — How did you know it? By feeling life. — When did you first feel that symptom? Near two months before he returned. — Then it was one month after he went away ? Yes.— * * Were you always con- stant to him in his absence? Were yon never unfaithful to him, when he was away ? I never did when he was at sea.—Had you not a white man in bed with you ? I had a scuffle with one once. I knocked off his hat. [[Witness, being pressed, at length admitted the fact that the white man had turned the black one out, and taken his place.] Of what colour were your parents ? My father was white — he was a Scotchman—and my mother was a dark sambo.— * Dr. Kisxam sworn — who, after examining those parts of the child which particularly indicate the colour of the race, said he shoidd not suppose, judging from the general rules of exjDe- rience, that it was the child of that black man; but, on the contrary, of one of lighter complexion than the mother. Black persons are almost white at their birth, but change soon after. How soon is the change generally complete? About eight or nine months; within the year it is complete. * From the report, published at New York. If it be not one of the most instructive cases on recoril, it is at least one of the most amusing I have met with.