Page:Introductory lecture on medical jurisprudence - delivered in the theatre of the Royal Dublin Society, on Saturday, the 16th November, 1839 (IA b21916512).pdf/9

7 the opposite counsel, and forced his views of them on the attention of the court, uncombated, to the benefit of the prisoner."

It is from a belief that the members of the bar must feel and be anxious to remedy this deficiency— must be anxious to avail themselves of an opportunity of acquiring information so useful and necessary in the practice of their Profession, and so essential for the just administration of the laws, that this course of lectures has been undertaken. I confess I approach this duty with much apprehension and anxiety; for though I am accustomed to teach the subject as it is taught in our medical schools, I feel it will be necessary to adopt here a very different course; and as this is, I believe, the first attempt to give a course of Medical Jurisprudence to the bar alone, it has all the difficulty and the danger of novelty. Besides, even in addressing the members of my own Profession, who come prepared by long previous study, the task of the teacher is by no means easy; for while the subject is at once the most extensive and most varied of all the courses of medical education, it requires the most minute accuracy and the utmost precision. But few, perhaps, are fully aware how much the labour of the teacher is increased, when his object is to make the general views and inductions of a science familar [sic] to minds that are but imperfectly acquainted with the facts on which these general conclusions rest. Having said so much with the view of conciliating your indulgence to the imperfections and omissions which, I am well aware, will be but too obvious in this first attempt, I shall only add, that no exertion shall be wanting on my part to render those lectures instructive and practically useful.

I intend to divide the entire course into three parts. In the first, my object will be to communicate such information respecting the situation, structure, functions, and some diseases of the chief organs of the body, as is absolutely requisite to render the subsequent parts of the course intelligible. The heart, the fountain itself of life, may first engage our notice. The importance of this