Page:Introductory lecture on medical jurisprudence - delivered in the theatre of the Royal Dublin Society, on Saturday, the 16th November, 1839 (IA b21916512).pdf/8

6 invidious to name one at home, whose early death permitted him to do little more than give a promise of what he might have in time effected, but who, had he lived, would probably have excited a taste for medico-legal studies amongst the members of our bar—I allude to Mr. John Smith, who, by the notes on different medico-legal questions with which he enriched the valuable treatise of Dr. Every Kennedy on the Signs of Pregnancy, rendered that work so complete, that it has become in these countries and in America the manual both of medical men and of barristers. I may add, as a proof of the advantages society might derive from the union of medical and legal knowledge in the improvement of the laws, that it was probably in a great degree owing to the forcible manner in which the absurdity of the old law of criminal abortion (which varied the crime according as the woman was or was not quick with child) was pointed out in this work, that the law was made, what it now is, consistent with science, with justice, and humanity.

The above are, however, rare instances, and in general it is quite otherwise; so that even in cases of great importance, when medical men are employed to furnish views and arguments upon the medical points of the case, the barrister is frequently unable to make use of them, from the want of some previous medical information. Thus, in a case which has lately excited much interest in the North of England, the trial of Bolam, the manager of a saving bank at Newcastle, for the murder of Millie, one of the clerks, the question of his guilt or innocence may be said to have turned on the medical evidence. [Dr. Brady here briefly detailed the facts of the case, and continued:]—An able physician. Dr. Lynch of Newcastle, had prepared a view of the medical part of the case, which was utterly inconsistent with the account given by the prisoner, and the defence set up for him; but "the leading counsel for the prosecution" (to use the language of an eye-witness) "not being prepared for the scientific questions, skipped them; and Mr. Dundas, being evidently well grounded in the medical points, availed himself of the deficiency in