Page:Introductory lecture on medical jurisprudence - delivered in the theatre of the Royal Dublin Society, on Saturday, the 16th November, 1839 (IA b21916512).pdf/7

5 causes, and it sometimes requires much skill and experience to distinguish between them. Thus the effects of putrefaction, or perhaps of injury, or even of the efforts of a mother to resuscitate a still-horn child, may be mistaken by a. careless or ignorant observer for the changes in the lungs consequent upon extra-uterine life. Can it be imagined that a barrister, unacquainted with the structure and functions of those organs, and of the changes that occur in both at the time of birth, and who has never witnessed the experiments by which the precise nature of those changes is determined, can be capable of detecting and exposing this ignorance or carelessness? His attempts in such circumstances must prove utter failures. But, indeed, not only must he be incapable of the more difficult task of managing the defence, but also of making such a statement of the case, or eliciting, even from a well informed witness, such a connected chain of evidence as will he sufficient to inform and satisfy a jury. This observation applies with almost equal force to every medico-legal inquiry—whether it be a charge of murder, a question of insanity, or of the insurability of a life. Unless the barrister has sufficient medical knowledge to be able to appreciate the force, or to see the fallaciousness of the medical evidence, the administration of justice can scarcely ever derive any solid advantages from the science of medicine. I believe I pronounce no libel on the members of the bar, when I assert, that, with few exceptions, they come to the Profession, both in England and here, and grow old in it, without the knowledge necessary to manage medico-legal inquiries. And hence it is that such cases, instead of becoming precedents of the triumph of scientific skill over the dark arts of the assassin, or the schemes of the fraudulent, are little better than a kind of chance-medley scuffle, in which some fortunate blow decides the victory. Exceptions, no doubt, there are in both countries, but especially in England, where some members of the bar have at all times paid attention to the subject. Mr. Justice Garrow, for example, Mr. Amos, and others, had even attended medical lectures. Nor will it be con-