Origin and progress of medical jurisprudence, 1776-1876 : a centennial address / by Stanford E. Chaillé.

  • Chaillé, Stanford Emerson, 1830-1911.
Date:
1876
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Origin and progress of medical jurisprudence, 1776-1876 : a centennial address / by Stanford E. Chaillé. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    11 believe entertain opinions the most contradictory.1 Who are these partisan witnesses thus summoned by the law to apply the power ot medical knowledge to the administration of justice ? Surely these legal represen- tatives of science must be competent experts? No.—Well, experienced and educated physicians of repute? No.—Then, of course graduates, at least some fledgling hatched in nine months, and fully feathered with the plumes of every branch of medicine, Medical J urisprudence included ? No, mot indispensable, since “ as a general rule” it has been adjudged that any practitioner of medicine (that is, any man who dubs himself Doctor) has sufficient knowledge of medical science to furnish justice with its “ best attainable evidence.”2 “0, [this] offence is rank, it smells to Heaven !” Common sense would presume that laws, so prodigal to ignorance and pretension, would provide means to test the value of scientific opinions by eliciting the facts upon which, if valid, they must be founded. Not so ; since these opinions are replies to questions, which often by their very structure comically prove entire ignorance of the facts involved ; for they are propounded by lawyers to whom these facts are unknown. Finally, it would be presumed that the decision as to the weight due such opinions would be left to a judge or jury specially chosen. No, even this last poor boon is denied by the law ! With the power of medical science thus crippled at the coroner’s inquest, then prostituted by the partisan opinions of incompetent experts, then perverted by advocates, and at last when emasculated of all vigor submitted for decision to those unable to estimate its weight; what wonder that such gross misapplication of medical knowledge brings upon it that public contempt which belongs justly to methods so mon- strous, and to which true medical knowledge is a helpless, pitiable, and disgusted victim! But these legal defects, so paralyzing to the past, so discouraging to 1 Beference is often made to the well-known facts that the sound expert-evidence of the illustrious John Hunter was in 1781 overborne by the evidence of three ignoramuses and that the testimony of the famous Denman was in 1806 set aside by the Court in favor of one male and two female quacks. The same system is continued, and therefore the same evils persist. Brof. A. S Taylor reports now, as to England, that a good search and o-00d pay can always find, in abundance, the witnesses needed on either side of any medico-leo-al issue, fins is certainly true as to the United States. Some facts may be cited in illus- tration. 1 have personal experience in a suit (unsoundness of a slave) in which the medical experts were selected by one side because of their iwell-known ignorance of the special knowledge (auscultation) which the issue involved; and the judge decided that the whole WWa PAStlf1°nyimUStIf SCt aSKC’ b?causc the negative evidence of the incompetent suf- ficed to counterbalance the very positive affirmative testimony of the competent experts Death, with a post-mortem examination, soon after the decision, conclusively proved Unt the ignoramuses deserved no consideration in justice, though they did receive eq iiponde ai t consideration in law. nM ^ pjiic attcntionX^K [by t^ete,aVC'^u® £rea^ Inlci^i^n^'engnging^he bestlcffalflti^meiiica? j11 ca®cs lilce probahly arc ttov in ordinary trials lacking !l,fseldva„t«S«T ' “ non lhe *jX^wilobe °,,!!k1 fu’!y sustained by reference to 13. 317, pp. 131_9 n q <0 T ^' 3 5, and 15. 303, p. 400. However JElwell f B n rqo\ ,^r * . • 34*, 1. pp. the effect that “ special knowledge must be fully' esUbiished hSj! l° e?ght (lccisions 10 amined as an expert;” but had h^ statnd hv Jlnf d . ,il Wlt,ness can be «*- judges, this “special knowledge must be fully established ’MIh. !’ and Y rhat incompetent have practically disappeared Anf.’ the aPPareu.t discrepancy would native State (Mississippi) the competency of i *thaV? thc of my a,'d Ulat’ when llis owu interests and reputation prompt simh a'n oath ! J °U h‘S °'U °ath :