A manual of legal medicine : for the use of practitioners and students of medicine and law / by Justin Herold.

Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A manual of legal medicine : for the use of practitioners and students of medicine and law / by Justin Herold. 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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    it may not be amiss to state right here that the present system of teaching this highly important branch of medicine in the medical colleges of the United States is highly defective ; in reality, there are but a score (if that many) of institutions which treat of the subject at all, and even in these the study is by no means compulsory. Hence it is that the ignorance of medical witnesses as regards forensic questions is so wofuUy palpable. The well-edu- cated physician, even though he be acquainted with all the other branches of medicine, is utterly incapable of solving important questions of medical juris- prudence. He is completely baffled when confronted by such intricate ques- tions as those embracing infanticide, strangulation, suffocation, drowning, or others. And why is it that he displays such gross ignorance, notwithstand- ing the fact that he is well versed in all other branches of medical science ? The plain reason is that none of the conditions of forensic importance are subject to solution by theoretical principles, but are comprehensible only when studied alone as facts. Young graduates in medicine are very often summoned hastily to cases which involve questions of medico-legal interest, when, to their utter dismay, they are confronted with the hopelessness of their position. What is such a person to do ? To give an illustration : suppose a man has just been found dead from submersion in water, and the newly made doctor is called. His duty, as outlined for forensic pur- poses, will be to discern between death before immersion and death from submersion ; whether any injury which may be detected was of ante- or post-morlem origin, etc. It is also his duty to ascertain whether the indi- vidual was strangled and then thrown into the water; whether he was drowned ; whether articulo mortis was apparent when he fell into the water ; or whether the person was in his usual good health at the time. There is no time for the hasty looking up of books, and, as foul play is suspected and a coroner's jury summoned to consider the results of the post-mortem examination, we can well imagine the awful responsibility which rests upon the physician ; for it is possible that persons may be apprehended or sub- jected to trial for homicide on his testimony. Such an experience is liable to confront any physician, and may actually be presented within a very short space of time subsequent to his graduation. Hence the importance of improving aild elevating the position of legal medicine in the medical institutions of this country. It is time that the attention of both the professions of medi- cine and law should be at least directed to this, the greatest deficiency in our medical education. Graduates of medicine should not be cast adrift by their alma maters without appreciating their responsibility to the State, and it becomes the bounden duty of every institution of medical learning to at least equip their students with a knowledge of the more important of forensic questions. In the present volume everything'that is practical and useful has been inserted, and all idle and superfluous questions which are still sub judice are dispensed with. Simplification has been the motto of the writer, so that any person possessing ordinary intelligence may benefit thereby.