Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/94

 xxxiv INTRODUCTION

The progress assuredly not great. In fact, I was reading, only just the other day, a medico-jurisprudential article which contained almost the same identical complaints which Benjamin Rush made so many years ago, at the beginning of American literature on medical jurisprudence. There was the same complaint as to the paucity of American medico-jurispru- dential books and journals — a complaint not entirely justifiable in view of the rather large number of encyclopedic works which have been brought forth of recent years in America on the subject of medical jurisprudence. There was the same complaint as to the necessity of resorting to French and German writers; as to the lack of appreciation of the subject of legal medicine on the part of many physicians and even lawyers; and, at the close, precisely the same criticism as to teaching. Indeed, on the whole, a very striking resemblance existed between the recent article and Dr. Rush's lecture. The modern production, rather, sounded just a little old, while the old-time lecture seems modern. The only pronounced difference which appeared between the compositions was seen in the literary style — that of the recent writer obscure, awk- ward, flaccid, that of the master clear, elegant and strong.

The matter is disgraceful, if we pause to consider the progress made by Americans in other fields of medicine. Consider the share which American doctors have had in the advancement of general medicine and general surgery — how much they have done. But turning to legal medi- cine, the situation is disappointingly different, our only apology that the shameful state of affairs is not the fault of physicians. Here, to be sure, is an excellent chance " to lay the blame on the other fellow." And it can be laid on the other fellow with the utmost truth. What is legal medicine? It is not simply medicine, as many physicians who know little or nothing of the law would try to have us think. It is medicine in the service of the law, medicine used by the law. I have not here the time to point out how strangely the emphasis of medicine is altered just so soon as medicine enters a law court — for instance, take the matter of powder-marks, how little of interest these mere stains and tattoos possess for the systematic surgeon (except cosmetically) and yet of what extreme importance the merest markings of powder are in a court of law: The size of the whole patch, the size of the separate tiny marks of which the patch is composed, the grouping of these marks, their uniformity or non-uniformity of size, etc., etc. The alteration of emphasis is really astounding. Then, too, many facts which, to the surgeon, are not of any significance whatever, and are therefore generally to him a complete terra incognita, are, in courts of law, demanded to be known, are thundered for with all the insistence and urgency at the command of those who are trying to save life and reputation, or else to destroy these things. And the " expert " does not answer, or answers and is laughed at for the poser that he is.