After the historical view which we have taken of the continental literature of the subject, we fear that the labours of our own countrymen, in this department of science, will suffer a disparaging comparison; and yet we trust that any temporary feeling of inferiority and humiliation thus excited, will easily yield to the just conception of the circumstances to which the neglect of the subject is to be attributed.
Although numerous questions connected with objects of forensic inquiry had been discussed and illustrated in the various periodical journals of Great Britain, yet no work, professing to treat of Medical Jurisprudence, appeared previous to the small and imperfect production of Dr. Farre in 1788, entitled “Elements of Medical Jurisprudence,”[[47]] and which was rather an abstract of a foreign work, than an original essay. The next in succession was a “Treatise on Medical Police,” by Dr. Robertson, in two volumes, published in 1808. In 1815 Dr. Bartley, of Bristol, presented us with “A Treatise on Forensic Medicine,” than which it is impossible to conceive any production more meagre or imperfect. Dr. Male[[48]] is undoubtedly entitled to the grateful notice of the medical historian, as the author of the first respectable English book on forensic medicine.
The last, and by far the most comprehensive and instructive work that has appeared in this country, is by Dr. Gordon Smith, entitled “The Principles of Forensic Medicine, systematically arranged, and applied to British Practice.” London, 1821.
In addition to the above writings, we may record the “Medical Ethics” of Dr. Percival; which, although not intended, nor indeed calculated for practical instruction, contains some interesting allusions to our subject. Nor must we omit to enumerate the several valuable monographs with which different English physicians have sought to advance the progress of medico-legal inquiry; as, for instance, the celebrated paper of Dr. Hunter, “On the Uncertainty of the Signs of Murder in the case of Bastard Children;” Dr. Haslam’s intelligent and judicious essay “On Medical Jurisprudence, as it relates to Insanity, according to the Law of England;” and Dr. Hutchinson’s laborious “Dissertation on Infanticide.”
Some of the more important subjects of Public Health, received also early notice, and were very ably investigated by our physicians. The plan of ventilating the holds and lower decks of ships, as proposed by Sutton in 1739, must have fallen into total neglect, through the unaccountable prejudice of the Admiralty, had it not received the powerful support of Dr. Mead, by whose advice experiments were publicly made, the success of which was, in the year 1741, acknowledged in an order of his Majesty that all vessels belonging to the Navy should be provided with ventilators. About the same period Hales published his celebrated memoir on the various causes which influence the health of seafaring men, and on the precautions necessary to be taken to prevent those maladies which frequently display themselves in ships and other confined situations; among which modes of safety the most important was a plan of ventilation by means of very ingenious bellows, and which were used with much success in the prisons of Porchester castle, Winchester, and Newgate;[[49]] and in the several hospitals of London, Bristol, and Northampton.
In the year 1803, on the presentation of a memorial to his late Majesty’s ministers, urging the expediency of a Professorship of Medical Jurisprudence, in the University of Edinburgh, a Chair was endowed, and Dr. Duncan, junior, appointed to fulfil its duties; which, for many years he has continued to perform, with infinite credit to himself, and with equal advantage to the University and to the public. In the schools of England we continue to suffer from the want of such an establishment; Dr. Harrison, a few years since, read some lectures on the subject in the Medical Theatre of Windmill street; and Dr. Gordon Smith, has announced his intention of devoting himself to the duties of a public lecturer on Medical Jurisprudence. Dr. Elliotson has also lately published his “Introductory Lecture of a Course upon State Medicine,” which he proposes to deliver in the Anatomical Theatre in Southwark.
But it has been demanded, and in a tone, as it would seem, suggested by the feelings of mortified pride and disappointment, how it can have happened that in Britain, a country distinguished above all others for the unceasing jealousy and circumspection with which every thing that even remotely interests the life and comfort of the subject is scrupulously regarded, a science so peculiarly calculated to control the disorders of the social system, to rescue innocence from infamy or death, and to lead to the detection and punishment of crime, should for so long a period have been imperfectly appreciated, and utterly neglected?
The answer to the charge is obvious, and, we trust, satisfactory. The progress of medical knowledge, including its collateral branches of science, can only within a few years be said to have rendered its applications available to the laws; while the spirit of British liberty and independence not only resists the perpetual intrusion of authorities, so necessary in other countries for the preservation of the public health, but insures, without the aid of legal enactments, all the benefits which can accrue from domestic cleanliness and attention.[[50]] But upon each of these points it will be necessary to offer some farther remarks.
That the evidence afforded by an improving, but still precarious and imperfect physiology, should have been indiscriminately received at the tribunals of those countries where the decision of questions of justice is too often influenced, and even directed by the subtleties of casuistry, may be regarded as a subject of regret, but can scarcely excite the feeling of astonishment. Nor can we, on the other hand, be surprised to find, that the extreme jealously of the British courts of judicature should have resisted testimony which admits of being depreciated, or in any degree rendered questionable, by the doubtful controversies of science. So rapid, however, has been the progress of the leading branches of medical knowledge during the last ten years; and so successfully have they disentangled themselves from the many fatal fallacies with which they were encompassed, that the general prejudice against their practical utility, in advancing the administration of justice, must gradually subside, and the study of forensic medicine become universally popular. To strengthen our conviction upon this point we have only to compare the evidence of medical men, as delivered in the courts of justice during the last, and present century. Even so late as the period of Sir Thomas Browne, we find that learned physician bearing public testimony to the reality of diabolical illusions, and occasioning, by his evidence, the conviction and condemnation of two unfortunate persons, who were tried at Bury St. Edmonds before the Lord Chief Baron Sir Mathew Hale, on the capital charge of bewitching the children of a Mr. Pacey, and causing them to have fits![[51]] In examining the chemical evidence in cases of poisoning, let us only compare that which was given by Dr. Addington on the trial of Mary Blandy, at Oxford in 1752, (see Appendix, p. 236) with that which has been delivered on any of the trials of the present day. Compare again the nature of the physiological evidence which has been received as satisfactory and conclusive, in cases of infanticide, with that which is acknowledged by the most distinguished physicians of our own times to be wholly inadequate to establish even a presumption of guilt.
With regard to the next point under consideration, viz. the expediency of an extended system of medical police in a free country like Great Britain, we have only to observe that, if we examine the extent of such institutions in the different states of Europe, we shall find it universally conformable with the genius, circumstances, and necessities of each government. Sweden, for instance, a country which from position, climate, and population, is relatively feeble, has found it necessary, for its very existence, to cultivate with assiduity the few resources which nature has bestowed upon it; and, hence, by a well digested system of medical statistics,[[52]] it has been enabled to achieve extraordinary and brilliant actions, and to repair immense losses which it would otherwise have been unable to survive.