upon these cases; of the danger of wounds, and contusions, and of injuries prejudicial to health or destructive of life; of the analysis or mode of detecting the numerous poisons; of the manner of giving evidence, or of his ethical duties in public and in private practice. It is therefore manifest, that medical jurisprudence is a distinct science, and one of the greatest importance and utility to the members of the medical and legal professions. If it could be taught by the professors of the elementary branches of medical education, there would be no need of a separate professorship; which, therefore, exists in all the medical schools of these and foreign countries.

In conclusion, the author has to remind the critical reader, that in attempting to compress the extensive information comprehended in the narrow limits of these pages, brevity of expression, and too much conciseness, may have rendered the style occasionally obscure or inelegant. This perhaps may be pardoned in a work chiefly intended for medical students, and which was originally published in one of the periodicals (The London Medical and Surgical Journal), to fill up lacunæ, and arranged as the suddenness of the occasion demanded; which in general afforded little time for attending to the beauties of style, to euphonious sentences, or to the other qualities of literary composition. If the work supply a want, or contribute to the maintenance of the character and utility of medicine, or in any way benefit the interests of mankind, or the administration of justice, the object of the author will be fully attained.

PREFACE

TO THE

SECOND EDITION.

THE favourable reception which this work has received in this and other countries, has compelled the author to endeavour to improve a new edition. He has accordingly enlarged many chapters, introduced much new matter, and carefully revised every part of his work. He has referred to the last editions of all standard works on the subject of which he treats, and appended all that is valuable since his former edition. He has considerably enlarged the first part, on Medical Ethics, by introducing the codes of continental Europe and America, and also those of Dr. John Gregory and Dr. Percival. Under this head, he has commented on Medical Education, Degrees, Diplomas, Medical Appointments-Success -Reputation-Eminence -Moral and Physical Medicine— Clinical Medicine-Rules for Prescribing Medicines-Action of Medicines on the Economy-Posology, or Fixation of Doses of Medicines-Pharmacology.

Part II. Laws relating to the Medical Profession is brought down to 1836. Few additions are made in this section, as the author is of opinion that the whole of the laws relating to Medical Polity in this country, will be remodelled during the present or next Session of Parliament.

Part III. Medical Jurisprudence is considerably enlarged, and in the opinion of the author, improved. Several additional Medico-legal questions have been made in this section.

Part IV. Laws for the Preservation of Health-Medical Police State Medicine-Public Hygiene. This section

occupies sixty pages of new matter. It comprises a vast number of subjects of great interest to public health and happiness.

Chapter I. Laws for the preservation of Public Health - Quarantine, Boards of Health - Contagious Diseases -Disinfection-Purity of Air, Water, and Situation Guardians of the Public Health-College of Physicians, as inspectors of Apothecaries' Shops, officers of Public Charities -Commissioners of Paving, Sewers, Cleansing the Streets, &c.-Framers of the Bills of Mortality.

Chap. II. Inhumation-Burial of the dead in Cities-Searchers and Inspectors-Danger of Exhumation and Opening of Graves —Premature Interment-Uncertainty of the Signs of Death— Account of Individuals buried alive-Vivisections--Proper period of Inhumation-Custom in France and England.

Chap. III. Signs of Real Death; aspect of the Face; Absence of Heat, and Lividity of the Skin; Absence of Circulation and Respiration; Cadaverous Rigidity of Stiffening; Physiological Causes of it; Physical Proofs of Death; Surgical Proofs; Incisions, Decapitation, &c.

Chap. IV. Putrefaction of Animal Matters; Putrefaction in the open Air, Water, and different Earths; modified by Age, Constitution, Sex, State of Thinness or Obesity; Mutilation or Integrity of the Body; Genus and Duration of Disease; Phenomena before Death; Period of Inhumation; Appearance and Cause of Insects; Humidity and Dryness of Earth; Chemical Composition of Earth; Depth of the Grave; Naked or Clothed State of the Body; Atmospheric Influences; Conversion of the Body into Adipocere; Dr. Fletcher's Physiological Views of Putrefaction, 1836.

Chap. V. Nuisances Legally and Medically considered; Trades and Manufactures; Filth in the Streets; Noises by Day or Night; Transitory Nuisances; Physical Effects of; Arrangement of by Paris and Fonblanque, including the Principal Trades and Manufactures; Purity of Air, Water, and Situation.

In addition to the new matter, there is prefixed a history of the rise, progress, and present state of Public Medicine, and also a copious Index, which may, perhaps, be considered a

Medico-Legal Dictionary. It is the fullest hitherto published in our language. Such are the features of this work. The author extracted from all available sources, both domestic and foreign; added the result of his own experience; and has presented to his readers a variety of information, not so far, as his researches enable him to state, to be found in any other elementary work in one volume, of equal size, on Medical Jurisprudence and State Medicine. He has not prefixed or added a bibliography, but leaves his readers to form their own conclusions on the number of works to which he has referred, and which he has duly acknowledged.

Great Queen Street,

St. James's Park, Westminster.

February, 1836.

INTRODUCTION.

MEDICAL Police, Political Medicine, State Medicine, Public Hygiene, Police of Health, and Medical Jurisprudence, comprise the acts of a legislature or government, and magistracy, for the conservation of public health, and also the enactment of laws for the regulation of the practice of the medical profession, and the duty of medical practitioners in aiding the legislature in forming just laws, and public tribunals in the administration of justice.

Medical Jurisprudence or Legal Medicine, is a science by which medicine and its collateral branches, are rendered subservient to the construction, elucidation, and administration of the laws for the preservation of public health. This term is considered by some writers as best calculated to express, in the most comprehensive manner, the application of the medical sciences to the purposes of law.

It has been divided into Forensic, Legal, Judiciary, and Judicial medicine, comprising the opinions and evidence required in courts of justice; and into Medical Police or State Medicine, comprehending all medical opinions and precepts which inform the legislature and magistracy in constructing the laws, and in enforcing them for the preservation of the public health. Both these divisions are included by the Germans in the term State Medicine. I have employed both in the construction of this work, as I have enumerated the laws relating to the profession, and to the preservation of public health, together with all medico-legal inquiries. I have preferred this arrangement to any other proposed by medicolegal writers in this country, as it is the most comprehensive. M. Fodere, of Strasburg, who has executed the most elaborate modern work on State Medicine, has divided the science