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1651 MEDICINE AND THE LAW. Henry Phipps, treasurer of the International Congress on Tuberculosis, to Dr. John S. Fulton, secretary-general, 714, Colorado Building, Washington, D.C., U.S.A. I MEDICINE AND THE LAW. The Prblem of Expert Testimony. AT a meeting of medical men in Boston, U.S.A., recently the following motion was carried :- That this committee recommend to the various district societies of the State a plan by which physicians, when called to make examina- tions for the purpose of testifying in court, shall make that examina- tion upon the basis of a professional consultation. Such a plan has been adopted by Dr. F. W. Anthony of Massachusetts for several years with great success ; it has, in practice, been approved both by bench and by bar. Those who favour original legislation to deal with the abuses of expert evidence allege, however, that one cannot deal with .. shysters" upon this footing, or, possibly, it may be urged upon any other footing short of discrediting them ; that lawyers will not forego the possibility of adducing biased testimony, unless, indeed, they are compelled so to do, as by the application of the " Anthony plan " ; the last objection is that certain professional experts will not willingly fall in with the suggestion. In answer to the last objection it may be affirmed that any expert witness who declined to consult with colleagues in this sense prior to the forensic examination would have diffi- culty in persuading a jury of his bonafides. In the United States objection has been raised, only to be overruled, that such an admission cannot be extracted from an expert witness under examination. If the question has been pro- pounded in the presence of the person examined, it is admitted as a part of what was said and done in that presence, and even if it is made to the physician himself it will be admitted as a question bearing upon his credibility and bias. Dr. Anthony claims that his plan deprives "the ambulance chaser " of his chief reliance, it adds to the self- respect of all physicians who testify in court, and chiefly it is the first step to the elevation of expert testimony, for the plan is as applicable in other lines as in that of medical testimony. The London Parks as Sleeping Plccees. Apparently there is a regulation for the benefit of those frequenting the London public parks under which authority is given to those in charge of them to prevent idle and dis- orderly persons from lying about on the grass and from occupying the seats. Relying upon this regulation a park constable on duty on Primrose Hill recently tried to induce a man, described as a labourer, who was lying on the grass, to move on, and was saluted by him with a volley of bad language in reply. The man was arrested and brought before Mr. Paul Taylor at Marylebone police-court, but apparently the learned magistrate was not in sympathy with the regula- lation or with the park constable’s manner of enforcing it, although the defendant was described by the constable as a perfect pest to the park, continually lying about in it. Mr. Taylor was of opinion that lying about in the park did not prove him to be an idle and a disorderly person and suggested as a parallel that he himself might be arrested if he chose to rest on the grass in Hyde Park, where, as he said, no doubt with truth, many people habitually lie. He was of opinion that proof of uncleanliness was necessary and he dismissed the charge. We are not altogether in agreement with Mr. Taylor who suggested that there might be a danger lest the police should arrest or bring a criminal charge against respectable poor people going to the pai ks to enjoy the fresh air. The respectable poor, and, indeed, respectable people who are not to be classed as poor, together with their children, find their healthy enjoyment of the open and grassy spaces provided for their recreation and pleasure curtailed and interfered with by the presence of loafers and idlers of both sexes sprawling on the grass. These are in some cases filthy and verminous but not in all. Many of them are idlers who con- trive to live well and to keep themselves a little above the condition to which rags are appropriate. Their wives work hard to support them or in other ways they pick up as much money as they require without any exertion on their own part. The police can be trusted to exercise discretion and to distinguish between disreputable loafers and citizens of the humbler class. The parks are not maintained as sleeping places for those who in summer make use of them in order to save the expense of beds in common lodging-houses and Salvation Army shelters. Hypnotism as an Excuse for Crime. To judge from the reports of French criminal trials which appear in the daily papers from time to time, accused persons in France are ready to put forward defences which are never heard of in this country. In a case reported on Monday last, a young man charged in the first instance with the murder of two persons admitted the fact but declared that at the time he was under the hypnotic influence of a certain medical man who often mesmerised him. " I had fallen asleep," he said, "when the spell came upon me.. I fought against it but was compelled against my will to go to the Prince’s house and strike at the Princess and her nephew." The medical man in question denies that he had exercised any influence in the matter. We do not know whether this defence is to be solemnly put forward in a court of justice ; we can only say that it would meet with but short shrift before a judge and jury in this country. As English law now stands we imagine that a man might as well plead drunkenness as an excuse for his misdeeds as allege that he was acting under the hypnotic influence of a third party. The defence of insanity would be out of the question. It has long been the law that to establish a defence on the ground of insanity it must be clearly proved that at the time of the committing of the act the party accused was labouring under such a defect of reason from disease of the mind as not to know the nature and quality of the act which he was doing, or, if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong. The accused has himself done his best to place his case out- side this category by saying that he fought against the evil influence brought to bear upon him. Assaults on Offioials Disoharging their Duties. In two cases heard on the same day, the one at the Tower Bridge police-court and the other at the Thames police-court, serious assaults were proved to have been com- mitted upon officials employed to enforce the law. In the first a perfumer named Albert Lowen had attacked a factory inspector named Davis who had called at the defendant’s premises in Westminster Bridge-road with refer- ence to his failure to put up an abstract as required by the Factory Acts. The defendant asked for proof of the inspec- tor’s authority and was shown it, but nevertheless attacked him savagely and threw him violently into the street, inflicting upon him injuries which delayed the hearing of the charge from March 12th until May 30th. The defendant’s excuse was that he did not see what was on the parchment, and thought that Mr. Davis was an impostor, and witnesses on behalf of the defendant alleged that Mr. Davis had abused the defendant and behaved in an unjustifiable ntanner. Mr. Rose appears to have disbelieved these allegations, for he described the assault as an outrageous and aggravated one, inflicting a fine of 5 with the alternative of one month’s imprisonment. In the other case referred to five persons- Aaron Selway, Harris and Annie Lupinsky, Esther Cheleboloff, and Ada Matznow were charged with harbouri-ug smuggled saccharin and were ordered to pay fines ranging from E70 to f.3, with alternatives of varying terms of imprisonment for that offence. It was shown, however, by the evidence that when the seizure of the saccharin took place and while a large quantity of it was being throws out of window by some of the defendants Mr. J. H. Davies, a preventive inspector, was violently assaulted, and Mr. A. W. Cope, a supervisor who accompanied him, was threatened with a knife. In the circumstances described the fines inflicted in both cases seem scarcely to constitute sufficiently heavy punishment to act as a deterrent against similar assaults. Factory inspectors, sanitary inspectors, medical officers of health, and many others, besides officers connected with the collection of revenue of various kinds, are often compelled to visit the houses of strangers and to perform tasks which render them highly obnoxious to persons of a very rough class. They are not selected and trained with a view to their defending themselves against violence like police constables and often act without police assistance and they are entitled to a full measure of protection from the law. The foreigners, moreover, who are so frequently offenders against the laws which have to be enforced by the officials in question are usually quite well aware that they are breaking the law and know perfectly well from experience in their own countries that they ought not to
