A manual of medical jurisprudence for India : including the outline of a history of crime against the person in India / by Norman Chevers.

  • Chevers, Norman, 1818-1886.
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of medical jurisprudence for India : including the outline of a history of crime against the person in India / by Norman Chevers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    prisoner's habitual state of mind should have been examined in the pre- sence of the medical officer, and he should have been invited to propose any questions on his own part. He should then have been carefully questioned as to the number of times he had himself seen the prisoner, the nature of his conversations with him, and all the circumstances from which, apart from the prisoner's real or professed religious delusions, he was led to regard him as of unsound mind. The questions should have been expressed so as to elicit an opinion of the medical officer, after his having had the advantage of hearing the statements of the members of the pri- soner's family, his neighbours, and other parties, as to the state of the prisoner's mind both previously to and at the time of the murder, and subsequently up to the time of the trial. The Sessions Judge ought not to have referred, as he has done in his report, to the medical officer having visited the prisoner only twice, and for short intervals, without directly questioning that gentleman upon the point. They therefore directed that the trial must be re-opened, the witnesses to the state of the prisoner's mind being again closely re-examined in the presence of the medical officer, together with that officer himself, as above explained, and the prisoner being called on for a fresh defence, and the law officer for a fresh futwa. Consequently, the Sessions Judge reported that, in compli- ance with the above instructions, the whole of the witnesses for the pro- secution, together with other neighbours, religious followers of the prisoner, who had known him for some years past, had been examined in the presence of the Civil Assistant Surgeon, who had himself questioned them. That officer had also watched and examined the prisoner in jail; every opportunity had been afforded him to arrive at a correct judgment, and the result was his conviction that the prisoner was not, and never had been, of unsound mind. The Sessions Judge fully concurred in the medical officer's opinion. The evidence as to the habits and manner of the prisoner for the preced- ing ten years, up to that present time, was clear, consistent, and corrobora- tive of his sanity; and, as the medical officer remarked, the only possible reason for suspecting the soundness of the prisoner's mind, was the fact of his committing murder without good apparent cause. Some of the witnesses, however, stated that the true motive of the prisoner's act was revenge, excited by deceased's intriguing conduct with his wife. Both Courts concurred in finding the prisoner guilty of wilful murder, and in sentencing him to death.* The valuable teaching of the above case is self-evident. Doubtless the minds of natives are not free from tendency to Religious Monomania. Indeed, constant brooding upon the laws and fables of a wild and bloody superstition! * Nizamut Adawlul Reports, Vol. IV. of 1851, p. 2-1. t The revelations of gross superstition in this country are often so ridiculous and un- natural that, even those tolerably well acquainted with the native modes of thought and expression are liable to be startled, and to question whether tlie.se wild fancies are not the