The student's handbook of forensic medicine and medical police / by H. Aubrey Husband.

Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The student's handbook of forensic medicine and medical police / by H. Aubrey Husband. 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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    The same high authority also states that if the writer of a medical report die before the trial, his report may- he used in evidence. This may be doubted. The necessity for simplicity in the arrangement and in the wording of their reports cannot be too strongly urged on medical men. ' A medical witness will do well to remember also that copies of his report and depositions, either before a coroner or. a magistrate, are usually placed in the hands of counsel as well as of the court; and that his evidence, as it is given at the trial, is compared word for word with that which has already been put on record.' All hearsay statements and irrele- vant matter should not be inserted in a report; and the reporter should be particularly careful not to add any comments to his simple narration of facts. Thus, such expressions as these^—' Under circumstances of great suspicion,' ' That this woman was murdered, and that with extreme ferocity,' ' That a severe struggle had taken place before death'—were severely com- mented on by Lord Deas in the case of E. v. M'Lach- lan. The use of superlatives is also very objection- able, as it partakes somewhat of exaggeration. All technical words or phrases should be as much as possible avoided; and where they are absolutely neces- sary, they should be briefly explained. As a case in point, showing the necessity for care in the use of words, I quote the following from a published paper by Sir E. Christison :—' Some years ago, on an important trial in the High Court of Justiciary for assault, the public prosecutor attempted to prove that the person assailed had been woimded to the effusion of blood; which is held in law to be an aggravation of guilt in such cases. When the principal medical witness was examined as to the injuries inflicted, he was asked whether any blood had been efi'used; and he replied that a good deal must have been efi'used. But he meant that there was eff'usion of blood under the skin, constituting the contusion he had described; while the