A letter to the Right Honorable Spencer H. Walpole, M.P., &c., &c. Chairman of the Select Committee on Lunatics / [John Charles Bucknill].

  • Bucknill, John Charles, 1817-1897.
Date:
[1860]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to the Right Honorable Spencer H. Walpole, M.P., &c., &c. Chairman of the Select Committee on Lunatics / [John Charles Bucknill]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    founded upon tlie experience thus gained, that the duties of a medical referee in these cases are too responsible and too in¬ vidious to be entrusted to any private person, and that the intention of the Court to provide itself for this purpose with the services of Physicians permanently attached to it in an oificial capacity, is one which your Committee will probably consider to have been formed on most sufficient reasons. But a still more important consideration is that the action of the medical referee, whether private or official, comes too late in the enquiry to be of as much service as it would undoubtedly be under different arrangements. The medical referee (or rather the medical officer of the Court, since in this case he would not be a referee) ought to be employed before and not after the parties are committed to a contest. His action might then be expected frequently to forestall liti¬ gation and to prevent the great evils of contested inquisitions. A person believed to be of unsound mind has made a will disinheriting his relations, or has given away large sums to persons holding him under undue influence, or has dealt with landed property in a manner prejudicial to his heirs ; a pe¬ tition in lunacy is presented by one or other of his relatives, accompanied by affidavits supposed to be sufficient to prove the case : these are answered by others supposed to be suf¬ ficient to disprove it, and after, as Mr. Barlow says “ an enormous number of affidavits are filed on each side, it has been found that the best mode of shortening the discussion has been for the Lord Chancellor to call in an officer of his own and get him to give them the assistance of his opinion as to the state of mind of the alleged lunatic.” But unfortu¬ nately, this is not done until after an enormous number of affidavits have been filed on each side, and both parties have been committed to the contest. The report of the medical referee, although it may determine the decision of the Lord Chancellor or the Lords Justices whether or no an inquisition shall be granted, will not at this stage of the proceedings have any influence in preventing further litigation, however hope-