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 336 MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE Ian McLane Hamilton, M. D. (New York, 1873) ; and " A Treatise on Medical Electricity," by Julius Althans, M. D. (Philadelphia, 1873). MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE, called also legal or forensic medicine, the employment of the principles of medical science in the adminis- tration of law. In its relations to jurispru- dence, medical learning is a branch of evi- dence in which the physician or surgeon is called in as an expert. There are traces both in the Jewish and Roman systems of the recognition of medical science in the applica- tion of laws; but forensic medicine cannot be said to have attained the dignity of a sci- ence until many centuries after the comple- tion of the Justinian code, certainly not until anatomy was studied in the human subject in the 14th century ; perhaps not before the publication of the Carolinian criminal code in 1552. The Roman law had referred all medical questions which arose in legal pro- cesses to u the authority of the learned Hippo- crates." The code of Charles V. enjoined the magistrate, in all cases of doubt respecting asserted pregnancy, infanticide, the means of homicide, and in other cases of death by vio- lence, to consult the opinions of medical men. During the latter part of the 16th century and the earlier part of the 17th, legal medicine made marked progress. Ambroise Par6 published during that time a treatise upon tardy births. Fortunatus Fidelis compiled and published at Palermo in 1602 all that was then known of medical science. At Rome, about 20 years later, Paolo Bacchia, or, as he is usually called, Paulus Bacchias, commenced the publication of his Quantionea Medico- Legales. This work appeared in successive volumes between the years 1621 and 1650, and deserves the merit of first worthily exhibiting legal medicine as a science. In France in 1609, under a patent of Jlenry IV., two surgeons were appointed in every considerable town to make examina- tions and reports in all cases of wounded or murdered persons. The application of the so-called hydrostatic test of Galen to cases of supposed infanticide, which had been sug- gested by Harvey, was discussed in several disquisitions by Bartholin (1663), Swammer- dam (1677), Jan Schreyer (1682), and toward the close of the century by Bohn, in his trea- tise De Renunciations Vulnerum. In a later work Bohn treated of the office of the phy- sician as expert in judicial tribunals. France produced during this time no very celebrated works on forensic medicine, but the' Doctrine de rapports en chirurgie of Blegny (1684), and the more useful book of Devaux on the same subject, are honorably mentioned in this branch of the science. In 1722 Valentini contributed to the literature of the science the Pandecta Medico- Legales. Between 1725 and 1747 were issued at Halle the successive volumes of the Systema Jurisprudentia Medicos of Albertini. This vork was followed by the Institution** Medicines Legalis nel Forensis of Tischmeyer, which was used for a long time as a handbook in the German universities, and formed the text of Haller's lectures, which were published after his death in 1 782 and 1 784. The Elementa of Plenck (1781) and the Sy sterna of Metzger (1795) are commended by writers of high au- thority. So too is the collection of Metzger's constitutions or opinions, many of which em- body the results of his studies in mental disease as a branch of legal medicine. The Collectio Opusculorum, edited by Schlegel, and embra- cing upward of 40 dissertations by German authors on various topics, was one of the most valuable additions made during the 18th cen- tury to the learning of the science. In the latter part of the 18th century, infanticide was made the subject of elaborate research by Daniel and Ploucquet, among others, the latter of whom published an essay upon the eviden- ces of respiration in new-born infants ; and by Metzger, Portal, and Camper, of whom the last wrote upon the signs of life and birth in new- born infants, and upon the causes of infanticide. During the same period the eminent French surgeon Antoine Louis, both by private dis- sertations and by his opinions pronounced be- fore the tribunals, contributed to the illustra- tion of some of the most difficult topics in legal medicine. Among the former are his memoirs upon tardy births, on the certain signs of death, on drowning, and on the mode of distinguishing between suicide and assas- sination in the case of a body found hanged. But his opinions, many of which are collected in the Games cettbres, present perhaps the clearest evidences of his genius. A valuable memoir upon death from blows or wounds was read by Chaussier at Dijon in 1789, and the next year he delivered there a course of lectures upon legal medicine. Shortly before the close of the century Fod6re published Lea lois eclairees par lea sciences physiques^ ou traite de medecine legale et d^Jiygiene publique. This treatise displays the entire system of the science. Dr. Parr published in England in 1788 the " Elements of Medical Jurisprudence." This book was a mere compilation from con- tinental authorities, but was at the time the only English work upon the subject. In the first year of the present century, the first lec- tures in Great Britain upon medical jurispru- dence were delivered at Edinburgh by Dr. Andrew Duncan, and in 1806 the first profes- sorship was established in the same city, and con- ferred upon Dr. Andrew Duncan the younger. The most important accessions to the science of legal medicine in recent times are those de- rived from studies of mental disease, and the application of the knowledge thus obtained to determining questions of legal responsibility; and from investigations into the nature and effect of poisons, and the mode of detecting their presence in the human body. The first systematic work of this century is the posthu- mous one of Dr. Mahon (1807), professor of legal medicine at Paris. In 1808 Marc pub-