MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE, or FOREN SIC MEDICINE. The application of medical science to the elucidation of legal qUestions whielt have a medical ash?ect. The questions in chided in modern medical jurisprudence are divided by into five general classes: (1) Those arising out (If sex relations, as im potence and sterility. pregnancy, legitimacy. and rape; (2) injuries indicted on the living or ganism, as infanticide, wounds, poisons. injuries. and death from violence; (3) questions arising out of disqualifying diseases. as the different forms of mental alienation: (4) those arising out of deceptive practices. as feigned diseases; (51 questions of a miscellaneous nature, as age, identity, presumption of seniority, and life as surance.
1n criminal trials in the United States each side hires its own experts. and, owing to the use of hypothetical questions and the advocate's eliciting only part of the truth. the spectacle is often presented of equally competent medical experts flatly contradicting each other. The (-fleet which this ha, had in casting doubt upon the value of expert opinion, and the dissatisfac tion to which it has given rise in the minds of judges. juries, and experts theinSel yes. ha ye IN] to numerous plans for remedying this defect in the present system of calling expert witnesses by establishing a class of official experts; but most of these plans conflict with one or all of the fundamental principles of the common law relating to the conduct of criminal trials: that the court shall be the sole judge of the law, that the jury shall pass upon feels, and that the defendant shall have the right to present any proper evidence on his own behalf.
In France experts are generally selected from a list of official specialists, termed aspects usscr and if the parties cannot agree upon the experts. the court appoints them. The court
may order an investigation and report by experts whenever necessary. and the order contains a statement as to the exact object of the investiga tion, and appoints a referee or Pig,. continissairc. Itarristers or urocats do not appear before the experts; but the parties are represented by solicitors or a rout's. or sometimes by persons specially skilled in the matter under investiga tion. The report must be a ip11141 by all the ex perts (who are three in number), the reasons for any dissenting opinion being embodied in 111c report. The judges. however, are not bound by the report if it is contrary to their convictions.
In tfermany. after the issues are determined upon which expert testimony is sought. the parties may agree upon the experts, and the court may appoint them. The court may limit the number of experts, or may subunit to the 1i:dirties the names of a untidier of experts, permit each sidle to challenge a certain number, and appoint those remaining. There is a class of officially appointed experts on certain subjects, and these have the preferenee in trials concern those subjects, unless there is some special reason to the contrary.
The plan suggested by Sir James Stephen in his History of (ice Cri 111 i I Lau. of England, and used for some years in Leeds. has given nowt] satisfaction. Under this plan. which re quires a high standard of professional honor andl knowledge. medical men refuse to testify unless before doing so they can tweet in confer. emirs- with die experts Of the opposing side. and have no exeltange of views. As a re•ult, it is staled that at Leeds medical witnesses are rarely cross-examined. and often they are called on one sick! only.
See EvtoExcE; IlL000srmxs: llomItiot•:: IN