Page:Introductory lecture on medical jurisprudence - delivered in the theatre of the Royal Dublin Society, on Saturday, the 16th November, 1839 (IA b21916512).pdf/10

8 organ in the animal economy; the nature of its functions; the curious and beautiful mechanism by which it is at once adapted to perform during intra-uterine life, the simpler office of receiving the blood from the mother, to transmit it to the child, and prepared to take on at birth the double duty of sending it first to be vivified by respiration in the lungs, and afterwards distributing it throughout the system; the frequency of disease in the organ itself, and in the large vessels; the obscure, insidious, often latent character of some of those diseases, as well as the suddenness with which they frequently terminate life; all deserve attention in reference to many medico-legal investigations,

A knowledge of the nature of the respiratory function, and of the structure and chief diseases of the respiratory organs, will be found equally useful. I have already alluded to this in connexion with infanticide, and shall only observe here, that the fatal character of certain diseases of those organs, together with the certainty with which they can be recognized by means of the stethoscope, give them a peculiar interest in reference to the subject of life insurance.

The numerous and important organs that constitute the digestive system—the stomach, intestines, liver, spleen, &c., will require and repay an attentive consideration. It is in the stomach, for example, we seek for evidence in one of the most common forms of crime—poisoning; and it is important you should not be ignorant of the diseases that simulate some in their symptoms, and some in their terminations, the effects of poison on that organ.

Some knowledge of the generative system is absolutely necessary, in order to understand the nature of the offences, and the numerous inquiries connected with abortion, concealment of the birth, infanticide, violation, and others.

And I need scarcely insist on the importance of an acquaintance with that system that presides over and regulates all the others, and which, in the derangement of its highest function, gives occasion to some of the most