A synopsis of modern medical jurisprudence : anatomically, physiologically, and forensically illustrated : for the faculty of medicine, magistrates, lawyers, coroners, and jurymen / by J.S. Forsyth.

  • Forsyth, J. S.
Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A synopsis of modern medical jurisprudence : anatomically, physiologically, and forensically illustrated : for the faculty of medicine, magistrates, lawyers, coroners, and jurymen / by J.S. Forsyth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    INTRODUCTION. JVIedical Jurisprudence is that science which applies the principles and practice of the different branches of medicine to the elucidation of doubtful questions in courts of justice : by some authors it is used in a more extensive sense, and also compre- hends medical police, or those medical precepts which may prove useful to the legislature or the magistracy—traces of which are to be found as early as the institution of civil society. In the Jewish law indications of it may be observed in the distinction established between mortal wounds and those not considered so; and in the inquiries prescribed in cases of doubtful virginity. According to Plutarch, it was ordained among the Egyptians, that no preg- nant woman should suffer aflBictive punishment— while the Romans, even from that early period in which Numa Pompilius flourished, grounded many of their laws on the authority of ancient physicians and philosophers. Propter auctorltatem doctissimi Hippocrati, is a phrase frequently met with in their decisions; and the Emperor Adrian, in extending the term of legitimacy from ten months (the period