into Medical Jurisprudence and Public Hygiene, and published three octavo volumes on each subject. The term Medical Jurisprudence is incorrect, as it may imply a knowledge of the laws relating to medical subjects, or a knowledge of the medical sciences as applied to legislation, forensic inquiries, and the Police of Health. It may also unite the legal and medical sciences, and in this sense it is employed by some modern writers (Paris and Fonblanque). Dr. Beck used the term in his excellent work in the restricted sense, and defined Medical Jurisprudence, Legal Medicine or Forensic Medicine, a science which applies the principles and practice of the different branches of medicine to the elucidation of doubtful questions in courts of justice (Elements of Medical Jurisprudence, 1823). He designed to offer another treatise on Medical Police, which has not as yet been published. Dr. Gordon Smith, our first systematic author on this science, followed the example of Dr. Beck, and published his work entitled, "The Principles of Forensic Medicine, Systematically arranged and applied to British Practice;" it was also his intention to write a separate production on Medical Police, which he did not accomplish. I have included Medical Ethics and Jurisprudence, and State or Public Medicine, in one work, and thus differ from M. Foderè, Dr. Beck, Dr. Gordon Smith, and Dr. Paris. This was the arrangement of some ancient medico-legal authors: Medicus-Politicus, sive de officiis Medico-Politicis tractatus, quatuor distinctus libris: in quibus non solum bonorum medicorum mores ac virtutes exprimuntur, malorum vero fraudes et imposturæ deteguntur : verum etiam pleraque alia circa novum hoc argumentum utilia atque jucunda exactissime proponuntur: opus admodum utile medicis, ægrotis, ægrotarum assistentibus, et cunctis aliis literarum, atque adeo politica disciplinæ cultoribus. Roderici à Castro, Lusitani Philos. ac Med. Doct. per Europam Notissimi. Hamburgi, 1614. I have also included the codes of Ethics of Dr. John Gregory and Dr. Percival, of the Royal College of Physicians in London, and of the Americans. The history of Hygiene is coeval with the origin of society. The first wants of man were aliment, and he was instructed in what was salutiferous and noxious to his condition. He soon discovered the influences of exertion, repose, sleep, waking, &c., upon his constitution. The knowledge of the laws, *Traité de Medecine Legale, et d'Hygeine Publique ou de Police de Santé adapté aux Codes de l'Empire Francais, &c. Par F. E. Foderè Docteur in Med. Professeur de Med. Legal. et de Police Medicale al a Faculté de Medicine de Strasbourg. T. vi. 1813. morals, and police of the people relating to the preservation of health, constitutes public hygiene or medicine. It necessarily existed in the remotest ages. The ancients were of opinion, that there was an intimate and mutual dependence between the moral and physical states, and of the necessity of enacting laws for the promotion of temperance and wisdom, as well as for the punishment of excesses and of crimes. All eastern nations had their systems of medical police; we trace it in their legislation, their manners and customs, and in the rules of their public police. The hygiene of Moses embraced three principal objects: the prohibition of certain aliments, ablutions for certain impurities, and the sequestration of certain diseases reputed contagious, as lepra, &c. The Levitical law, ch. xiii. xiv., commanded the priests to visit the houses infected with the plague of leprosy, or with other contagious disease; to examine the inhabitants, to establish quarantine, to purify the houses, to shut them up, and pull them down in certain cases. We find in Deuteronomy, ch. xxii., that in questions of doubtful virginity, the elders were to be consulted, and enjoined to deliver judgment according to the physical evidence of the case. It is easy to conceive, the object of legal purifications in warm climates, where the tendency of animal foods to putrefaction, and the copious perspiration of the people, were the causes of insalubrity, which frequent ablutions destroyed. The chief hygienic means of the ancients, in addition to those already mentioned, were gymnastics, baths, and repose after the latter. The principal rules relative to public police among the ancients, referred to the salubrity of habitations, the locality of towns, cities, and streets. The Father of Medicine wrote a Treatise on Air, Water, and Situation, and this work has influenced all civilized nations for nearly 3000 years.* It led to the draining of marshes, and improvement of situations. Most persons know that the Roman emperors Julius and Augustus Cæsar, ordered the Pontine marshes to be dried; to which Horace alluded: **** Sterilis diu palus, aptaque remis Hygiene was, as already observed, cultivated long before the time of Hippocrates; and the rules regarding it, were deduced from the universal laws of the animal economy, and referred * Hippocrates flourished and wrote before Christ, 460 years. to age, constitution, intelligence, to wants, or pleasures. Moses enforced laws as to the use of all aliments, fruits, grains, herbage, bread, milk, fish, flesh, wine, &c. According to Herodotus, the Egyptians invented beer, which was subsequently mentioned by Moses,* and they were the most healthful individuals. The Egyptian law ascribed to Menes, ordained, according to Plutarch, that no pregnant woman should suffer afflictive punishment. The Jews made a distinction between mortal and dangerous wounds; and had laws relating to virginity, marriage, adultery, embalming and interring the dead, and other subjects of public medicine. Joseph found the Egyptian priests physicians, and he ordered his father's body to be embalmed.—Gen. l. 6. A.C. 1747. The ancient Greeks highly estimated the power of morals in preserving health, and perfecting the species; and we find this opinion prevalent in all ancient nations. Their primary object was to give to the country a robust people and vigorous defenders. It was this principle that gave origin to customs, which, in our time, appear to be inhuman and barbarous. Thus the destruction of delicate infants by the Spartans-a horrible custom of the Chinese at present with respect to their female offspring. The laws of Lycurgus on the physical education of infants and of girls to the time of marriage, with a view of transmitting a good constitution to their offspring, and many more hygienic ordinances, afford ample proof of the state of public medicine among the ancient Greeks. The physical legislation of Pythagoras and Plato was also intended for the conservation of the public health. It is remarkable, however, that there are scarcely any traces of the union between law and medicine in the works of the ancient Greek physicians. There is some portion of hygiene and state medicine scattered through the voluminous writings attributed to Hippocrates; and some crude speculations on the nature and growth of the infant, the period of pregnancy; and the abolishment of some rude obstetricy. The opinions of the father of physic on the perpetuation of the species, the animation of the foetus, and on many other physiological questions had great influence on all ancient legislators. Those of Aristotle have had a like tendency; and even to this time. Both these authors held that the foetus was inanimate in the womb for a certain time, during which it was no crime to cause abortion. The canon law was founded *Leviticus ch. x. Numbers ch. vi. on this opinion, and has influenced all legislators to the present period.* The above authorities also maintained, that pregnancy might be protracted beyond the ordinary term of nine months; which is now the received opinion of physiologists. : Medical men, both among the Greeks and Romans, were consulted by the magistrates most frequently on questions of medical police, as on the salubrity of cities, and on the means of assuaging the virulence of epidemic diseases and to subjects of that nature the public functions of the Archiater, or state physician, were confined in the lower ages of the empire. That they were summoned to give evidence in a court of justice no where appears; and had they been called, their testimony, in ages when human anatomy was proscribed, must, in a majority of difficult cases, have been of comparatively little value. The laws of ancient Rome were chiefly enacted on the same grounds as those of Greece; but they embraced more important medico-legal questions. In the reign of Numa Pompilius, before the Christian era, 600 years, and 140 before the time of Hippocrates, it was enacted, "de inferendo mortuo,” (lex regia) that the bodies of all women who were in the last months of pregnancy, should be opened immediately after death, so that the infants might be saved if possible. History also informs us, that the elder Scipio Africanus, Marcus Manlius, and the first Cæsar,+ were brought into the world by incision of the abdomen, or gastro-hysterotomy; and hence the origin of the term, Cæsarian operation. It was also enacted in the Twelve Tables, A. C. 452, that the infant in the mother's womb was to be considered as living, and all civil rights secured to it. The legitimacy of an infant was limited to 300 days after the death or absence of his putative father, or within ten months of the supposed time of impregnation; but the period was afterwards extended to eleven months. Most of the Roman laws were framed in accordance with the opinions of the ancient philosophers and physicians, and many legal decisions were given; propter auctoritatem doctissimi Hippocratis. Several laws were constructed during the reign of Severus, Antonine, Adrian, and Aurelius, on the authority of Hippocrates and Aristotle; the crime of procuring abortion was limited to those cases in which the foetus had exceeded forty days, as before that time it was not considered a living * The present law of this country awards a different punishment against the perpetrators of abortion before and after quickening. See INFANTI† Plin. Hist. Nat. L. vii. CIDE. b being;* and the Emperor Adrian extended the term of pregnancy from ten months-the period of legitimacy according to the Decemvirs-to eleven, in accordance with the physiological opinions of the times. It is also recorded by Suetonius, that the bloody remains of Julius Cæsar, when exposed to public view, were examined by a physician named Antistius, who declared, that out of twenty-three wounds which had been inflicted, one only was mortal, which had penetrated the thorax between the first and second ribs. Gerike has collected some curious instances of the inspection of murdered bodies by medical witnesses, from the writings of Suetonius, Tacitus, and Plutarch. The body of Germanicus was also medically inspected; and, by indications conformable to the superstitions of the age, it was decided that it had been poisoned. The bodies of Agricola and others were also examined by physicians, according to Tacitus. It does not appear that there was any positive law which required the inspection of wounded bodies by medical practitioners, or that legislators required medical opinions before making laws. It is, however recorded, that before the time of Philumenos, A.D. 80-who first studied obstetricy at Rome the midwives were ordered by the prætors to examine pregnant women in judicial inquiries. Augustus had previously favoured the profession of medicine, A.D. 10, and exempted its members from public burthens and taxes. About 100, valetudinaria and veterinaria were established in the Roman camps, for wounded soldiers and horses. § Galen was born in 131, and was physician to the gladiators at Pergamos, A.D. 159. He alluded to some questions of legal medicine; he remarked the difference which subsists between the lungs of an adult and the foetus; admitted the legitimacy of seven months children, and offered remarks on the manner of detecting simulated diseases. He related the case of a Greek lady who escaped punishment for adultery on the opinion of a physician. She had borne an infant very unlike the supposed father; and the physician accounted for this, by referring its resemblance to that of a picture which hung in the chamber of the mother. The promulgation of the Justinian Pandects, A.D. 529, *See INFANTICIDE. Foderè. Introduction, p. xiv. + Foderè. op. cit. § Hospitals were first established in Jerusalem by Eudocia, wife of Theodosius, A.D. 440; but medical practitioners did not attend their inmates. |