Medical jurisprudence / by Alfred S. Taylor.

  • Taylor, Alfred Swaine, 1806-1880.
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical jurisprudence / by Alfred S. Taylor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    jury, in returning a verdict of not guilty, stated that they entertained a doubt, and gave the prisoner the benefit of it. Had the medical witnesses departed from their plain line of duty, in this very difficult case, and sworn that the child had certainly died from hemlock, the gen- tleman who has criticised the evidence would probably have been the first to re- mind them that there were no medical facts whatever to justify a positive opinion, and that the blood of the unfortunate prisoner was upon their heads! An opinion on which no responsibility depends, given from theory in a medical journal, is one thing; an opinion given from medical facts, in a witness-box, when the issues of life and death depend upon it, is another; and it is creditable to the humanity and good feeling of all the legal gentlemen engaged in this prosecution, that they were fully satisfied with the verdict. There was room for doubt, owing to the very suspicious character of the paramour of the prisoner, the chief witness against her; and the jury were probably guided in their verdict by the considera- tion, that it is better that ten guilty persons should escape than that one innocent person should suffer. Analysis.—Most of the Narcotico-irritant poisons owe their deleterious effects to the presence of an alkaloidal principle similar to morphia, and susceptible of insulation by complex chemical processes. There is, however, considerable difficulty in extracting these alkaloids from the respective vegetables; and when extracted, the chemical differences among them, in respect to -the action of tests, are very slight. Indeed, better evidence of the poisonous nature of a liquid would commonly be derived from the exhibition of a portion of it to animals, than from the application of chemical tests. In a medico-legal point of view, tliere are, with few exceptions, no chemical tests for these poisons, when they are mixed up with organic liquids, upon which reliance can be placed. When the vegetable has been used, either in the shape of seeds, leaves, berries, or root, then valuable evidence may be sometimes procured by searching, with or without the aid of a good microscope, for the botanical characters of the jdant • these parts of the plant, from their indigestible nature, may be found in the vomited matters or evacuations during life, or in the alimentary canal after death. The broken leaves may be separated by washing, as they are quite insoluble in water: they may be therefore easily collected, dried on mica, and examined by the microscope, which, under the hands of a good botanist, may thus reveal the nature of the poison. This source of evidence will, however, often fail, owing to the poison having been taken in the form of extract, infusion, or decoction; or even, in some instances, owing to the digestive action of the stomach itself on the vegetable matter. The active alkaloidal principle is no doubt absorbed, in all cases of poison- ing ; but it has not yet been satisfactorily detected, by chemical processes, in the blond or secretions. Some years since, I was consulted in a case in which there was hardly a medical doubt that the life of a person had been destroyed by the decoction of a narcotico- irritant vegetable. The fact, however, could not be clearly established. It is much to be regretted that post-mortem examinations are not enforced as an indis- pensable part of a coroner's inquest, in all instances of narcotico-irritant poison- ing. There is no department of toxicology so defective as this; only a few pathological characters have been observed in cases derived almost exclusively from foreign authorities; and in regard to the effects of some of these poisons on the human body, nothing whatever is known except that they destroy life. The acqui- sition of any sort of medical experience, on these points, in England, is, unfortunately, left to be a matter of the purest accident; and yet, on a trial for murder by any of these poisons, our law-authorities would expect that a witness should be perfectly conversant with their effects on the body, while the only possible source of acquir- ing such knowledge in a satisfactory manner is entirely cut off from the medical profession ! Some well-informed coroners have endeavored, in performing their