A manual of medical jurisprudence / by Alfred Swaine Taylor.

  • Alfred Swaine Taylor
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of medical jurisprudence / by Alfred Swaine Taylor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    taking an erroneous view of bis position. This description of the quahfications 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 ques- tions, 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 himself of the notion that these principles can be spontaneously acquired, or that they are neces- sarily 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 require to be assorted, selected, and moulded into shape, before they can be applied to any useful or practical purpose. The duties of a medical jurist are distinct from those of a mere physician or surgeon. The latter looks only to the treatment of disease or accident, and the saving of hfe; but the object of the former, in a large proportion of cases, is, whether in reference to the living or dead, to aid the law in fixing on the perpetrator of a crime, or to rescue an innocent person from a falsely imputed crime. Thus he may be required to determine whether, in a particular case, the cause of death was natural or violent; and for this purpose it will be necessary for him to make an entirely new application of his professional knowledge. He has now the difficult task of making a selection from those parts of the medical sciences which bear upon the legal proof of crime. Some members of the profession have been inclined to look upon medico-legal practice as an unnecessary addition to their ordinary duties; but there are few that have been long engaged in medical practice, who have not found themselves occasionally placed in situa- tions of difficulty from the occurrence of cases demanding medico-legal investigation. A medical man is summoned to attend a person labouring under the effects of poison criminally administered; but at the time he may have no knowledge, or even suspicion, that poison is the cause of the symptoms. In spite of the best treatment, death ensues : here the functions of the medical man end, and those of a medical witness begin. It is impossible that he can now avoid giving evidence, or shift the responsibility on another—the law will insist on his appearance, first in the court of the coroner, next before the magistrates, and after- wards at the assizes. It will here be assumed that, as a registered member of the profession, he is fully competent to answer every question put to him by judge and counsel relative to the general efiects of poisons; the quantity required to destroy life; and the time within which a poison may prove fatal. It may be objected to his evidence,
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