The claims of forensic medicine : being the introductory lecture delivered in the University of London, on Monday, May 11, 1829 / by John Gordon Smith.

  • Smith, John Gordon, 1792-1833.
Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The claims of forensic medicine : being the introductory lecture delivered in the University of London, on Monday, May 11, 1829 / by John Gordon Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    individuals has been here to express his thanks, and is now in this theatre; a living and a grateful man, instead of lying a dismembered corpse on the table of the anatomist. But we require no thanks; we want to do good, by extinguishing error, banishing prejudice and ignorance, and raising truth, knowledge, and common sense to their proper level. Perhaps this may be the last opportunity I shall seek of recommending Forensic Medicine to public notice. Argu- ments, if now offered in vain, must give way to practical illustrations; and these I have now displayed a very simple method of obtaining. It is my design to bring those who are styled the guardians of the public health before their country, in order that they may prove the worthlessness of Medico-legal study, by displaying how very much they them- selves can speak to the purpose who neglect or despise it. If these parties continue insensible to the force of truth and the influence of necessity, I promise you that every member of certain courts of examiners shall stand an examination himself in a court of justice, before twelve months pass over. All this will be affected by very simple machinery ;—an inter- view with an attorney, a subpoena, and a few suggestions to counsel, will be perfectly sufficient. Let those who are placed in conspicuous situations, for the express purpose of directing the studies of young men to essential objects, attend to the duty of enlarging the limits of professional acquirements : let it be no longer optional but imperative, that the candidate for admission to practice shall be qualified for the discharge of his duties under the critical eye of the public. Why this absurd perseverance in a course of neglect, which distin- guishes the medical schools of this country from those of all others by a glaring and remediable defect? Have we no tribunals ? Are medical men in this country never required to go before them? or, when they do go, are they found to display an almost miraculous knowledge of their very pecu- liar business ? Or, again, do they feel so easy and comfortable on these occasions, as to supersede all necessity for thinking