Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Illustrations of medical evidence and trial by jury in Scotland. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
52/66 (page 48)
![keep in view, in going tlivougli this case, that tliese regulations were afterwards sent to Mr Syme. It was said that lie could not say whether he acted under the second or the third. Why did he select the third, and could not tell, and complain of it? It suited, no doubt, better the purpose of that gentleman’s discussion to take up the third, which ordered the police-surgeon to visit all patients, so as to be prepared to give medical evidence on the trial of the case. But if he had attended to the terms of the certificate, he could have been at no loss as to which regulation Mr Glover was acting under ; for the tenns of the certificate expi’essly bore that the patient’s life was in danger, and that he was in a fit state to make a declaration. Therefore, if he read this, he saw at once the sole purpose for which Mr Glover went there. That purpose was again stated at great length by Mr Glover, in a letter published in the Scotsman of the 1.3th of June, to which the letter in the third issue is an answer. Well, Mr Glover goes there, and makes this report, and the first consideration unquestionably for you when you find this certificate attacked by Mr Syme, and language used which is said to be injuri- ous and libellous in regard to it—the first consideration is, What was the object of that certificate ? If a person chooses to publish medical reports of cases for the instruction of the medical world, no- body knows better than Mr Syme that these are liable to be at- tacked in regard to their statements. If, again, a report is used at a public trial in proof of facts, but when the person Avho writes it must be examined also, to prove that it is a report, for a certificate is no evidence in itself, and the person says that that report is true, that he saw and examined the limb—an expression which Mr Syme has imported into this case, but which is not in the certificate or letter of Mr Glover at all—when he did not examine the limb, such a witness does not only lay himself open to a charge of falsehood, but in reality to a charge of perjury. But this certificate was not meant to be published as the medical report of a case. It was not intended as evidence at the trial. It was for the special and limited ])urpose of satisfying the Procurator-Fiscal whether he should take that boy’s deposition. That was the sole object of it, its terms show that. The letter of the Superintendent of Police, instructing Mr Glover to perform this duty, demonstrate that. Mr Glover also swears to it. But independent of that, the certificate itself, and the instructions under which he acted, completely and sufficiently show the object and purpose of the certificate. AjuI.so entirely is it limited](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21913134_0054.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
