A letter to the reform corporations on the necessity of electing medical coroners / by George Rogerson, surgeon.

  • Rogerson, George.
Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to the reform corporations on the necessity of electing medical coroners / by George Rogerson, surgeon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    medical practitioners qualified by their education, practice, habits and thoughts, which are obliged to be constantly directed towards medical knowledge, are comprised in this class.—They, alone, are able to carry into effect the in- tentions of the law, as Coroners, — the presiding and recording inquirers; to take every advantage of this view of the body,^^ to discover suspicious and unnatural ap- pearances and the necessity of obtaining the aid of a scientific witness to prosecute the inquiry, and to know that he performs his duty ably and properly for the benefit of the jurors—the deciding inquirers. An objection, deceptive without the merit of plausibihty, may be offered against the absolute necessity of appointing Medical Coroners. These inquiries, important and ne- cessary as they must be admitted, can be obtained from a medical witness. A Coroner is present at every inquest; a medical witness sees very few of them, and at the ma- jority of these few, the assistance of a medical practitioner is, according to the present practice, required only on account of some glaring suspicion, or strong communica- tion, which stupidity itself could not overlook. Are the great majority of deaths on which inquests are taken, and the cause of which are unenhghtened by medical wit- nesses, invariably unattended with suspicious circum- stances? A great number of sudden deaths, requiring inquests, are suspicious, and a medical Coroner, who, by the nature of his profession, is best acquainted vnXh the causes and appearances of death is enabled at once to decide on the truth or falsity of these suspicions, and on