A Manual of medical jurisprudence

THE PRACTICE OF MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE.-MEDICAL AND MEDICO-LEGAL DUTIES.-INSPECTION OF BODIES IN DEATH FROM WOUNDS OR POISONING.-USE OF NOTES.-MEDICO-LEGAL REPORTS.-DYING DECLARATIONS.

MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE-Or, as it is sometimes called, FORENSIC, LEGAL, OF STATE MEDICINE may be defined to be that science which teaches the application of every branch of medical knowledge to the purposes of the law; hence its limits are, on the one hand, the requirements of the law, and on the other, the whole range of medicine. Anatomy, physiology, medicine, surgery, chemistry, physics, and botany lend their aid as necessity arises; and in some cases all these branches of science are required to enable a court of law to arrive at a proper conelosion on a contested question affecting life or property.

The purpose of this work is to bring as far as possible within a small compass those subjects that especially demand inquiry, and which more. particularly concern the duties of the educated physician and surgeon. The definition above given necessarily implies that a medical jurist should have a theoretical and practical knowledge of all branches of the profession, a large range of experience, and the rare power of adapting his knowl edze and experience to emergencies. He should be able to elucidate any diffi alt medico-legal question that may arise, and be prepared at all times to make a cautious selection of such medical facts, and a proper application of such medical principles, as may be necessary to enable a judge to place the subject in an intelligible light before a jury, and to enable a jury to arrive at a just conclusion.

The variety of subjects of which a medical jurist is required to have a knowledge, may well alarm a student and lead him to suppose that, as he cannot make himself perfectly acquainted with all, he may well forego the labor of preparing himself in any. But this would be taking an erroneous view of his position. This description of the qualifications 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 questions, and encounter and remove all medical diffienities, 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 ( 17 )

DUTIES OF PHYSICIANS AND

merely of his profession, but of that which falls more peculia the province of a medical witness. There can be no doubt tha perfectly a man has made himself master of his profession, the he be fitted to follow the principles and apply himself to the medical jurisprudence; but he must divest himself of the n these principles can be spontaneously acquired, or that they sarily derived from the study of those isolated branches of med which medical jurisprudence is based. The materials for th jurist undoubtedly exist in these collateral sciences; but they be assorted, selected, and moulded into shape before they can to any useful or practical purpose.

The duties of a medical jurist are distinct from those of a mere or surgeon. The latter looks only to the treatment of disease of and the saving of life; but the object of the former, in a large of cases, is, whether in reference to the living or dead, to aid t fixing on the perpetrator of a crime, or to rescue an innocent pe a falsely imputed crime. Thus he may be required to determine in a particular case, the cause of death was natural or violent this purpose it will be necessary for him to make an entirely plication of his professional knowledge. He has now the diffic making a selection from those parts of the medical sciences w upon the legal proof of crime.

Some members of the profession have been inclined to look upo legal practice as an unnecessary addition to their ordinary du there are few that have been long engaged in medical practice not found themselves occasionally placed in situations of diffic the occurrence of cases demanding medico-legal investigation. man is summoned to attend a person laboring under the effects criminally administered; but at the time he may have no know even suspicion, that poison is the cause of the symptoms. In s best treatment, death ensues: here the functions of the medical and those of a medical witness begin. It is impossible that he avoid giving evidence, or shift the responsibility on another-the insist on his appearance, first in the court of the coroner, next magistrates, and afterwards at the assizes. It will here be assu as a registered member of the profession, he is fully competent t every question put to him by judge and counsel relative to the effects of poisons; the quantity required to destroy life; and within which a poison may prove fatal. It may be objecte evidence, that the deceased had died from the effects of disease from poison; in which case the cross-examination will lead to a inquiry into all of those diseases which resemble the effects of their symptoms and post-mortem appearances, as well as the making an unfailing distinction between them and the fallacies the chemical processes for the detection of poison are liable.

On another occasion a medical man may be called to render a to one stabbed in a quarrel and speedily dying from the wour office of the surgeon here ceases, whilst that of the medical juris He must now be prepared to answer numerous questions, all upon the legal proof of crime, all necessary in law, although ap superfluous in surgery. Thus he may be asked to state the characters of a wound inflicted upon the body of a man soon afte and by what means a particular wound was inflicted. Was it h or accidental? The amount of blood lost? Whether the pers have moved or performed any act after receiving the wound

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