however curious may be the points which they present to us; for I feel that we are met here for better purposes than listening to histories, albeit I believe that, flavoured as they are with a slice of romance, they might at any rate be more captivating to your attention than anything I am about to say.

My idea is, that I can best fulfil the duty of addressing you on forensic medicine by ignoring individual instances and taking a look at the subject generally, especially in relation to the matter of preliminary inquiry into cases of a suspicious character which involve medical considerations. It is quite true that this means looking. rather at the legal than the medical aspect of the subject; but the numerous letters which appeared last year in the Association's Journal, and the fact of a conference, mainly composed of medical men, having been held by the Parliamentary Bills Committee of the Association, under the presidency of Mr. Ernest Hart, on the subject of coroners' inquests in November last, justify me, I think, in following this line on the present occasion. It will, I suspect, prove that much of what I say will appear to you gentlemen of England to be heretical; but I believe you will not absolutely object to hear the views of one who has had some medico-legal experience in a country where there is no such person as a coroner, and no such body as a grand jury, but where there does exist in full activity a public prosecutor, who is almost an unknown functionary south of the Tweed.

Before saying anything further on the special subject of preliminary, or rather primary, investigations in a case of suspicion, let me shortly inquire in what estimation this department of State medicine is held by the public and by the professions of medicine and law. As regards the appreciation of forensic medicine by the general public (I mean the laity outside the professions of law and medicine), I think, on the whole, it tends to exaggeration. Ignorant of the modern progress of science, they, on the omne ignotum pro magnifico principle, are rather astounded by the evidence given in the courts by experts. They of course know nothing of the progress which chemistry, physiology, and pathology have made in recent times, and they regard as something marvellous, what we as welleducated medical men know to be only ordinary scientific knowledge, the delicate chemical results, the logically connected physiological phenomena, and the accurately noted pathological appearances which are brought forth, say in a trial for murder by poison, by well-qualified experts. Be it so. It is an error on the safe side, if it could only reach the minds of those who have criminal proclivities. Unhappily, most of them are of the rude, utterly ignorant class. But we have had our scientific murderers, our Palmers, Pritchards, Chantrelles, whose crimes have been satisfactorily brought home to them; and every conviction obtained under difficult circumstances is a fresh weapon in the hands of retributive justice, which she can wield as a terror to evil-doers. We must not in a

quackish spirit exaggerate, but we need not, in any spirit of mock humility, decry the power of good medical evidence for the detection of crime, and we may with honest pride point to what she can do, and in numerous instances has done, in the way of vindicating the offended majesty of the laws of God and man.

I am not quite sure what answer I should give to the question, How does the profession of the law regard forensic medicine? I think that on the whole your practising lawyer looks upon it as a rather sharp weapon, but he has some dread of it as a double-edged one; or rather he often regards it as a kind of boomerang, which may make a deadly hit if skilfully thrown, but which may occasionally turn back in an unexpected way and smite the arm which projected it. Do not accuse me of Scottish pride if I say that I believe forensic medicine is more properly appreciated among Scottish than among English lawyers. I think I have grounds for this; it is, at all events, more studied by them. No man is called to the Scottish Bar who has not attended a course of lectures on medical jurisprudence. I am not aware that any similar provision exists in your Inns of Court. This is not what should be. Forensic medicine is a weapon which every lawyer has occasion to employ, and, in order to his successfully scoring a hit, he ought to know its mechanism, the elevation he ought to give to it, and the allowance he ought to make for the wind of difficulty and uncertainty which more or less always blows across his range.

I have often seen in the records of both English and Scottish courts how the want of some knowledge of this nature has crippled the hands of a barrister. Nay, with all reverence be it said, how it has led to manifest nonsense being uttered from the Bench, by the mouths of those from whom better things might have been expected, and I would rather wish that English as well as Scottish lawyers (it there be no recent regulation to this effect, of which I am unaware) were obliged to make forensic medicine part of their professional study. I should be doing violence to my own sense of justice if I did not take this opportunity of saying that the law students who attend my lectures are, as a class, distinguished by their earnestness and zeal in acquiring knowledge, and if I did not record the satisfaction which I have often felt in our criminal courts in finding a young barrister employing in cross-examination of myself medicolegal knowledge which I had the privilege of imparting to him.

What shall I say as to the appreciation of forensic medicine by our own profession? I fear, if I am to be candid, I must say it sometimes has rather the cold shoulder turned to it. I fear that many of our students think it a matter of little or no importance, and many teachers do nothing to disabuse them on this point. You will, of course, absolve me, who am a teacher of forensic medicine, from the preposterous idea of holding that it need be placed upon the same platform, in regard to importance, as medicine, surgery, and obstetrics. I have seen and heard too

much of forensic work not to know how thoroughly an advocate may ruin his case by pleading it too high. I desire to avoid this. I do not ask that it should be a leading study; I only desire that it should not be neglected. I am, of course, aware of the argument that is often used, that forensic medicine is not a special science, but only that which is known to every man who is a well-informed and duly educated medical practitioner. I demur to this as a doctrine which ought to influence medical education; it is unsafe. Medical questions assume a very different aspect, and reflect very different hues, when viewed in the glare of a court of justice, from what they do in the mild light of the hospital or the sick-room. The function of the teacher of forensic medicine is to accustom the student's eye to adapt itself to this peculiar optical medium; it is to teach him to regard medical matters, with which as a practitioner he may be familiar, in the peculiar light under which they may be viewed in a court of justice. It is quite true, he cannot be a good witness unless he is a well-educated practitioner; but he may be a successful practitioner and yet find himself a very poor witness at a trial. I have no sympathy with, and still less would I have confidence in, a man who, not having given due attention to forensic medicine as a study, can glibly talk of his being able, on the score of his success in practice, to step jauntily into the box and show bench, bar, and jury that he knows all about it and can set them right. He is exactly the man who, riding on the bicycle of professional self-esteem, is apt to get an ugly fall-all the more disastrous that it occurs coram publico. Let me advise any young member of the profession who thinks he will make a good witness because he promises to be a good practitioner, to take warning from an old hand. I will cite no very recent, still less living, instances; but let such a one, if he have time and opportunity, look up the record (he will find it in Sir James Stephen's "General View of the Criminal Law of England") of the well-known trial of Donnellan for poisoning Sir Theodosius Boughton, and let him see how poor an appearance, to use no stronger phrase, was made in the witnessbox by him who bore the clarum et venerabile nomen of John Hunter.

I make these remarks, not to magnify mine office as a teacher of forensic medicine, but to warn entrants to our profession of a possible danger lying ahead of them. I am afraid that I must say that the want of due appreciation of forensic medicine is not confined to students, but that there are loose ideas afloat on the subject among those who regulate their studies. I cite, as an example of this, the amended scheme for the Examining Board for England, as accepted by the conference of the representatives of all the authorities of England, which bears the date of May 18th, 1877, and the signature of so distinguished a man as Sir James Paget. I find there, under Regulation III., "That examiners be appointed to conduct examinations in the following subjects: 1. Anatomy; 2. Physi

ology; 3. Chemistry; 4. Materia Medica; 5. Medical Botany; 6. Pharmacy; 7. Medicine; 8. Surgery; 9. Midwifery; 10. Forensic Medicine," but with this note in italics: "Questions in Forensic Medicine are to be included among those asked by the examiners on Chemistry, Medicine, Surgery, Midwifery." About the necessity of there being specific examiners on most of these subjects there can be no dispute; but it strikes me as curious that, whilst it is proposed to have a specific examination on Medical Botany (whatever that may be, as distinct from the knowledge of the vegetable materia medica and scientific botany), Forensic Medicine is left to be distributed among the examiners in Chemistry, Medicine, Surgery, and Midwifery. I should have thought that two old proverbs, both of them musty but practical, might have suggested themselves to the framers of this clause. One is, that what is everybody's business is nobody's business; and that these various examiners, having their own subjects to attend to, are not likely to give much attention to forensic medicine. The other proverb relates to the danger of falling between two stools; but here we have no less than four of these articles of furniture on which forensic medicine is expected to poise itself, and I need hardly say that here there is a double chance of a tumble, with increased probabilities of permanent fundamental injury. Depend upon it, candidates for medical honours will not think much of a department of knowledge on which they are not to be asked questions, except in a vaguely incidental manner by those who are engaged examining them on others, and, as I proclaim them to be, more directly important subjects. Now, it is true that what I have quoted is not part of the regulations for candidates for a university degree, but is only part of the proposed scheme for examining those who are to obtain the minimum qualifications entitling them to enter the professionin short, of those who may be expected to be the general practitioners of the land; and it may be said that it is sufficient for its purpose. I cannot assent to any such doctrine. It presents an educational phenomenon for which I have been somewhat puzzled to account; but I think I have found a solution thereof. It appears to me that the framers of this regulation, in considering the subject of forensic medicine, had suddenly found themselves in close proximity to the law; that, fired with a spirit of surgical enthusiasm, they had made an exploratory incision into the corpus juris, and from its "awful belly," to use an expression of Thomas Carlyle, had extracted that well-known nodule of the wisdom of the civil law, De minimis non curat prætor, and had translated this maxim thus: "The courts will not care much for the evidence of our minimists." And the courts would be right, if this be the way in which forensic medicine is to be set before the eyes of those who are working their way into the profession, provided the courts could dispense with the evidence of all but those holding the highest qualifications; but, unfortunately, in the majority of

instances, it is upon the evidence of the general practitioner, not on that of the special expert, that the tribunals must depend for the primary information which is essential for their guidance; and if the ordinary practitioner have not had due inducement to regard medical questions in a forensic light, he will be apt to miss important points of observation, or to make mistakes which may lead to an actual miscarriage of justice. Every one who has, as an expert, been consulted in important medical legal cases, must know how often he is in doubt what opinion to give, because the facts on which he has to found his conclusions have been stated in a loose and unintelligible style.

I know it is said that only a limited number of persons engage in medico-legal practice, and that it is unnecessary to demand, by the test of examination, a special knowledge of it from every one who enters the profession. I deny this altogether. What is forensic medicine? I take the definition from Mr. Chitty, who says it is "the evidence and opinions necessary to be delivered in courts of justice relative to criminal and other matters to be there determined." Is there any practising member of the profession who may not be any day called upon to narrate facts, and state opinions, in reference to a case with which he may one way or other have been connected? Is it not well for him to have had his attention directed to the aspect which any given case may present, when viewed in relation to the proceedings in a court? The fact is, that forensic medicine is the only branch of his profession which a man may be obliged to practise nolens volens. It is essential, if I am a candidate for a diploma, that I should be tested as to my knowledge of medicine, surgery, and midwifery, before I am let loose on a confiding public as a practitioner; but, once my diploma in my hand, I may now choose to abjure any one of these departments of medicine. You cannot compel me to amputate limbs if I choose to restrict myself to medicine. You cannot make me take charge of a case of pneumonia or typhoid fever if my tastes are in the way of surgery. You quite properly examine me in midwifery, but you cannot compel me to sit down at the bedside of a groaning woman and support her perinæum. But if I have, as a physician, a surgeon, or obstetrician, become connected with a case presenting some element of suspicion, a magistrate, or coroner, or procurator-fiscal may summon me, under penalties, to give evidence in a court, and in these circumstances I am practising forensic medicine. Is it not better, therefore, that I should be encouraged to study it in the knowledge that I shall be specially examined on it ?-not induced to pay little attention to it by telling me I may be incidentally tested by those who are examining me on the more important subjects which are to be the constant objects of my professional attention. Will it not, in such circumstances, occur to me as a candidate, that the examiner in medicine is little likely to put aside scarlatina and smallpox, in order to