A handbook of medical jurisprudence and toxicology : for the use of students and practitioners / by William A. Brend.

Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A handbook of medical jurisprudence and toxicology : for the use of students and practitioners / by William A. Brend. 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.

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    those directly concerned with the prevention and spread of disease. Toxicology, or the science of poisons, must be regarded as, to some extent, a separate subject. In so far as it is concerned with the criminal administration of poison, it is a branch of medical juris- prudence, but the question of treatment in cases of poisoning really belongs to the domain of therapeutics. However, it would be very inconvenient to consider these matters separately. Both medical jurisprudence and toxicology are subjects which frequently call to their assistance other branches of science. Besides medicine, surgery, and obstetrics, the medical jurist requires a knowledge of chemistry to aid him in the detection of poisons, anatomy in the identification of animal remains, physics in the use of the spectroscope, botany in the recognition of poisonous plants, and so forth. A few words may be said with regard to medical jurisprudence from the points of view of the student of medicine, and of the general practitioner respectively. By the former, the subject is, in most cases, looked upon as tedious and uninteresting, and merely to be crammed up for the purpose of passing examinations. It is probable that this view arises from the necessity the student is under of learning forensic medicine almost entirely from books and lectures. In medicine and in surgery his most important work is done at the bedside, in the operating-theatre, and in the laboratorj'; but in medical jurisprudence it is, from the very nature of the subject, im- possible to provide practical demonstrations, e.xcept perhaps in such matters as testing for blood and for the presence of poisons. There is, however, one course which the student may take if he is really anxious to miss no opportunity of acquiring a practical knowledge of the subject, and that is to attend frequently at the Coroners’ Courts. The writer, when a student, did this, and invariably found the London Coroners ready to afford every facility for hearing the cases. With regard to the general practitioner, it must be admitted that, as a rule, he is not so familiar with medical jurisprudence as he is with other branches of his professional work. Nevertheless, the subject is one of great importance to him, for he may at any moment be called upon to act in accordance with its teachings, under very diversified circumstances. The confidence, which is placed in the family doctor, mikes him the recipient of many a confession, and the freedom of access, which he has to his patient at all times, enables him to detect crime, or attempts at crime, or the exercise of undue inlluence, which would otherwise pass unnoticed. In cases of death from violence, the medical man is often the first person trained in habits of observation upon the scene, and he may accordingly be the most important witness in any enquiry which follows. In cases of rapidly approaching death, the practitioner may have duties connected with dying declarations, will-making, and other matters (juite outside the region of pure therapeutics. A knowledge of medical jurisprudence enables the medical man to take the right course under all these circumstances, and