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 The History of Forensic Medicine

689

sterility in the female, impotency in

appeared in 1660, in which he considers

man, the signs of virginity, pregnancy and labor, the duration of gestation,

the fatality of wounds, and advises the

monsters, hermaphrodites, obsessions, sorcery, demoniacal possession, philtres,

performance of autopsies. The book is entitled Rationale vulnerum lethalium judicium. In 1689, Bohn treated the same subject much more deeply in

the simulation of diseases or inﬁrmities,

a work which possesses considerable

contusions and wounds, accidental death or by violence, miracles, resurrections, etc. Among these questions there are some which have still remained and will

authority, entitled

irregular parturitions and the birth of

De

renunciatione

vulnerum.

In the eighteenth century we ﬁnd the Pandectm medico-legales by Michel Bern

continue to remain, in the decision of

hardt Valentin.

which the courts will always resort to medical science for information. Others

medico-legal questions asked by the Ger

have disappeared with the fall of the

tury and discussed in the universities. This example was followed by Zittmann

canon law and the change in customs. Then again, others which owed their

existence to the imperfect knowledge of the time, the love of the marvelous and

superstitions, little by little fell by the wayside as the scientiﬁc mind became developed. The Renaissance and the seventeenth century consequently mark the com mencement of the scientiﬁc period of forensic medicine. Like all other branches of medicine this one received a remarkable impulse, and although the

It is a collection of

man courts during the seventeenth cen

in 1706; Alberti, in 1725; Loew, in 1725. Richter, in 1731, gave a collection of decisions rendered by the universities and the civil and ecclesiastical courts.

The general treatises which hold a promi nent place in medico-legal literature should also be mentioned. Teichmeyer‘s treatise, published at Jena in

1722,

entitled Institutiones medicime legali's 'uel forensis in quibus practituaa maten'w ci'm'les, cn'minales, et consiston'ales tra duntur, is of great importance. Then

latest born, it very soon occupied a very

come those of Goelicke, in 1723, Eschen

large place in the history of medicine.

bach, in 1746, F. Hoﬁmann, in 1746, and the classical treatise by Hebenstreit,

As has been pointed out, Germany, from the Caroline Constitution, was the ﬁrst to outline a criminal procedure and to form an excellent organization of forensic medicine. A special and com petent personnel, the teaching of the subject in the universities, combined

with a regular and extensive observa tion, were all conditions which assured

a remarkable development of legal medi cine in this country. Beginning with Zacchias, one will ﬁnd a large number of

periodical publications and general treat ises in which the most interesting cases have been collected and commented upon. Among the principal works I

would mention that of Welsch, which

in 1753, entitled Anthropologia forensis sistens medici circa rempublicam causasque dicendas oﬁicium. And lastly, the works of Daniel and Plouquet on pulmonary docimasia, of Heister, in 1727, on preco

cious and tardy births. The great men of medicine, van Swieten, Haller and

J. P. Franck, are also associated with legal medicine of the time. France was far from being so richly endowed in works on forensic medicine, but there were, however, some very important cases which occupied the attention of physicians and resulted in

important researches. Thus, Lecat, in 1750, put forward his singular theory of