Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/90

 lxxx INTRODUCTION

author an international reputation. Not the least of the merits of the work consists in the extremely delicate and precise steel engravings which accompany it. These are the result of the remarkable skill and unflagging industry of Mrs. Wormley, the author's distinguished wife. The very touching circumstances under which Mrs. Wormley began, adhered to, and completed the arduous labor required for the production of these engravings will be found set forth in the biographical sketch of Dr. Wormley in the body of this book.

An important matter connected with the "Micro-Chemistry of Poisons" consists in the fact that its author has everywhere written with a careful regard for the court room. As Ray and Ordronaux have treated the legal relations of insanity as though the subject of insanity did really possess some legal relations, so Wormley has treated poisons as though that subject were likely at times to appear in the courts. But Wormley labored under an obvious disadvantage: he knew but little of the law. However, throughout his treatise, from title-page to index, he seems to bear in mind that toxicological tests must be able to with- stand a rigorous cross-examination. He wants them all court-proof. If he did not fully comprehend the intricacies of American law, he did at least know and remember that toxicology is a subject peculiarly liable at times to assume important legal relations.

In 1869 appeared Ordronaux's "Jurisprudence of Medicine." This is really and strictly a medical jurisprudence. That is to say, it is legal rather than medical. It is an excellent exposition of the American — and to some extent the English — law relating to medical (and also phar- macal) matters. The volume was the first genuine work on medical jurisprudence, as distinguished from legal medicine, printed in America. Its author, Dr. John Ordronaux, was both doctor and lawyer.

The same author, in 1878, produced a volume entitled "Judicial Aspects of Insanity." This volume is the only one I know in the English language by a deceased author which can at all compete with the masterpiece of Ray. It treats of the judicial aspects of insanity as though insanity were really possessed of judicial aspects, and not as so many of its writers on the so-called medical jurisprudence of insanity are accustomed to handle their subjects — i. e., as if it had but little con- nection with the courts. The effects of the various forms of insanity from a legal view-point are traced out carefully and in full.

Then, too, the procedure in lunacy, the care and custody of the insane, a dozen or more of similar topics, are treated in a way that brings out much important legal matter which doctors, as well as lawyers, assuredly ought to know about.

Ordronaux's style in the main is good, but it is often labored and abstruse. It is, in fact, far too abstract and remote from human interest.