The principles of forensic medicine : systematically arranged, and applied to British practice / By John Gordon Smith.

  • Smith, John Gordon, 1792-1833.
Date:
1824
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The principles of forensic medicine : systematically arranged, and applied to British practice / By John Gordon Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    try offer a mass of important materials for our judi- cious selection and application. It is perhaps neces- sary to warn those who may turn their attention to these, that mfere paragraphs are always to be viewed with suspicion; but that reports of justiciary pro- ceedings may be considered authentic, as far as they go. Often, however, they will disappoint from their defects and inaccuracies. They are recorded not for the instruction of the scientific, but to feed the craving and monstrous appetite of the unthinking public. I cannot overlook another important object in the view of our medico-legal position. The books we possess within ourselves are capable of teaching a great deal, and to this we can, by procuring the works of foreign writers, add to a vast extent. But the science of Political Medicine, at least the im- portant part of it here to be considered, can never be taught sufficiently by books alone. Many of the facts must be presented to the observation. Toxico- logical chemistry, and the physiology of Infanticide, do not consist in words only. To acquire a due knowledge of these, and of several other subjects, the eye, and the hand, nay, all, the organs of sen- sation must be employed. Students have not been compelled to attend to this, and practitioners have sometimes attempted it to little purpose-—the con- sequence is well known; but the remedy is still withheld. Confusion and disgrace have overtaken many a professional witness ; and there is nothing which medical men dread so much as the witness boi\ This they have, generally speaking, abundant reason to do, and more now than ever. The members of the bar know better how to ask than, in general, they do to answer questions of this nature. But from a