Part 12

Enumerate to the friends the possible explanations of the fatal issue. Affirm that there is no reason to have expected any one of them, and that all the usual precautions had been taken.

Report to the Coroner, or advise, where such report is considered unnecessary, that an anatomical post-mortem examination should be conducted for the satisfaction of all parties concerned.

VII. SOME STEPPING-STONES OF MEDICAL EVIDENCE.

1200 Pledge to answer truly appears.

1215 Trial by Ordeal abolished.

1275 The Coroner’s Ordinance. The inquest jury were the witnesses also; inspection of external appearances was alone necessary for the jury’s post-mortem examination.

1290 The Court, after being advised by physicians, direct the jury as to the legitimacy of a posthumous child.

1345 The Sheriff is directed to summon the foremost London medical men to consider the severity of a recently inflicted wound.

1354 A charge of surgical malpraxis narrated in the City Records.

1450 Common witnesses are summoned to appear before the jury.

1506 Dispute as to the province of the Court or the surgeon to decide upon the severity of a wound.

Anatomical post-mortem examinations occur, though pathology is primitive. “Searchers.”

1542 Thomas Vicary advises the Lord Mayor in a case of battery.

1562 Witnesses summoned sub-pœna.

1575 Ambrose Paré publishes typical “medico-legal reports.”

1632 College of Physicians report in full on a corrosive poisoning case.

1665 Sir Thomas Browne affirmed in Court his belief in witches.

1699 Baron Hatsell objects to Dr. Crell quoting “Ambros Parey’s” opinions.

1723 Mr. Justice Tracey enunciates “the wild beast” theory of responsibility in lunacy cases.

1767 Slater v. Baker & Stapleton—a case of surgical malpraxis; damages £500.

1781 John Hunter gives expert evidence in an alleged poisoning case: “I can give nothing definite.”

1788 Samuel Farr’s Elements of Medical Jurisprudence.

1795 Matthew Baillie exposes the fallacy of “Death from polyp of the heart.”

1807 Chair of Medical Jurisprudence established in Edinburgh.

1823 Last “cross-road” burial of suicides in England.

1827 Orfila doubts detection of blood-stain with the microscope.

1830 The first Medical Coroner elected. “A medical Crowner’s a queer sort of thing.”

1831 Sir Thos. Watson lectures at King’s College Hospital, and Swaine Taylor at Guy’s.