Forensic medicine and toxicology / by J. Dixon Mann.

  • Mann, J. Dixon (John Dixon), 1840-1912.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Forensic medicine and toxicology / by J. Dixon Mann. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    FOEEJSrSIC MEDICINE AND TOXICOLOGY. PART L—FORENSIC MEDICINE. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION—CORONER'S COURT—ASSIZES. Forensic Medicine is a many-sided subject; a knowledge of it demands more or less acquaintance with medicine in all its branches, and with the collateral sciences. It has been said that any medical practitioner who has a fair knowledge of his profession only requires common sense to qualify him as a medical jurist. This is a specious but fallacious statement. A knowledge of surgery, or of obstetrics, for example, limited to that required for the relief of suffering would be of little use in unravelling many of the complex questions with which the medical jurist has to deal, although the branches of medicine named may be those which are appealed to for that purpose. Much of the knowledge and skUl possessed by the surgeon is useless to the medical jurist, and that knowledge of a surgical character which is important to the medical jurist is all but useless to the surgeon. Take the case of a wounded man : the surgeon examines the Avound in order to determine the best treatment for its cure ; to him it is of minor moment as to whether the wound was self-inflicted or not, or as to whether it might have been produced by a certain weapon, or could not have been thus produced. The attention of the medical jurist, on the other hand, is chiefly directed to these points. Something more is required for foi^ensic purposes than a knowledge of the various departments of medicine in relation to the healing of the sick, and this additional knowledge cannot be replaced hy common sense; it necessi- tates special training. If a medical man were to commence his career as a medical jurist with no other preparation than a knowledge of medicine and surgery and the allied sciences solely as regards the art of healing, without being acquainted with the connecting links by A