Volume 1

The principles and practice of medical jurisprudence / by the late Alfred Swaine Taylor.

  • Taylor, Alfred Swaine, 1806-1880.
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The principles and practice of medical jurisprudence / by the late Alfred Swaine Taylor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    remained concealed) have been brought to light by this system, it fails nevertheless, as the inquiry is now conducted, to exercise much deterrent influence on criminals. And why? The answer is simple. The system aflfords no certainty for the detection of crime ; it affords no protection to those who are wrongly charged with crime; and, lastly, in some cases it screens a criminal by a verdict based upon an imperfect inquiry, in which the important medical facts are either not understood or are misinterpreted by the jury. The reasons why it does or does not do these things are various, but may be sumined up as follows:—(1) The character of the coroner ; (2) overlapping or indefiniteness of areas of jurisdiction ; (3) in some cases there is no post-mortem examination of the dead body by a qualified medical man; (4) in a small proportion even of those autopsies which are made the cause of violent death may be overlooked through the want of familiarity of the inspector with the signs of a violent death, or with the steps necessary to be taken in a medico-legal inquiry; (5) the verdicts of coroners' juries are not infrequently ridiculous, and quite contrary to the medical evidence; (6) and, lastly, it is by no means unknown for a coroner to call no medical evidence whatever. 1. The Character of the Coroner.—Obviously we are not con- cerned with what may be called the moral character of the individual, but with those items in his character which make him a fit person for his peculiar duties. The Coroners Act of 1887 states that he shall be a fit person, but no preliminary test of ability or capacity is required of candidates for the office. Inasmuch as his main duties are (a) to hear evidence, {b) to understand medical evidence as to the cause of death, it is quite obvious that he ought to be a medical man with some knowledge of what constitutes evidence: as regards this latter point a coroner is probably the most absolutely independent president of a court in the world, and may reject or admit what is offered as evidence absolutely at his discretion, and but little harm can accrue from the disregard for rules of evidence which a medical man, acting in the light of common sense, is likely to show ; but the incapability of understanding medical evidence is a bar of the most unsurmountable character to fitness to be a coroner, for the verdict must depend entirely upon this evidence. 2. Overlapping of Jurisdiction.—The Coroners Act, 1887 (50 & 51 Vict. c. 71, s. 1), directs that where a coroner is informed that the dead body of a person is lying within his jurisdiction, and there is reasonable cause to suspect that such person has died either a violent or an unnatural death, or has died a sudden death of which the cause is unknown, or that such person has died in prison, or in such place or under such circumstances as to require an inquest in pursuance of any Act, the coroner, whether the cause of death arose within his jurisdiction or not, shall, as soon as practicable, issue his warrant for an inquest; and the Lunacy Act, 1890 (53 Vict. c. 5,8. 84), directs that every coroner shall, upon receiving notice of the death of a lunatic within his district, if he considers that any reasonable susijicion attends the cause and circumstances of the deatli, summon a jury to inquire into the same. In the above quotation it would seem to the ordinary mind that the word lying was as unambiguous as a word could be, and yet in the Lancet, 2 1899, p. 1531, will be M.J.—VOL T. 2