Hints for the Examination of Medical Witnesses - Tapa blanda

Reseña del editor

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1829. Excerpt: ... witnesses, will, it is hoped, derive considerable assistance; but in order to answer such questions in a creditable and satisfactory manner, medical men must, of course, extend their researches beyond the narrow limits to which we are here confined. It is their business to instruct the court; and on matters within their province it is not supposed that judges, counsel, and jurymen, possess particular information; while to be able to put proper questions, is, perhaps, more necessary than for parties to be vable to answer them. To be so, however, is an indubitable part of every medical man's duty. The subjects belonging to Forensic Medicine resolve themselves into two divisions as relates to their physiological import--those that concern the living system, and those that relate to the dead body. On the present occasion we shall not adhere to this distinction, but endeavour to class the topics as they present themselves in the form of Criminal or Civil process, the latter including certain questions that belong to the business of the Ecclesiastical Courts. IN THE CRIMINAL COURTS are tried all issues arising out of offence done to the person, which interest the state or public, and subject the accused, when convicted, to personal punishment--to the penalty for the most part of death. We may enumerate the following as the topics to which attention ought here to be directed:--Homicide, Child Murder, Abortion, Rape. Homicide may, with tolerable accuracy, be referred to one of the three following causes--as all specific or particular methods of committing it, which are likely to bring parties to the bar of a public tribunal, are referrible to one of these:--Poisoning, Suffocation, Wounds, and other mechanical violence. HOMICIDE BY POISON. Although the list of sub...