Abstract
THIS entertaining work contains an account, from the time of Elizabeth to the present day, of thirty odd trials in which medical men figured, usually as defendants. The cases, which, as the author acknowledges in the preface, have not been arranged in any particular order, either chronological or alphabetical, have, with two exceptions from France and the United States respectively, been taken from the criminal annals of Great Britain. Ten cases in which the medical man was brought to trial for treason or other political offences contain nothing of scientific interest, and the same may be said of the crimes of violence, libel, and poisoning. The most instructive cases are those dealing with poisoning, the drugs chosen by the doctors for their victims being arsenic, aconite, hyosine, strychnine, and morphia. Among these may be cited the first case of poisoning by morphia, in which the evidence of Orfila, the celebrated Parisian toxicologist, was the cause of bringing the poisoner, Dr. Edme Castaing, to the guillotine. Mention may also be made of an interesting chapter on the ‘resurrection men,’ dealing with the events which gave rise to the amendment of the law with regard to the supply of bodies for anatomical schools and the passing of the Anatomy Act.
Some Famous Medical Trials.
By Dr. Leonard A. Parry. Pp. x + 326. (London: J, and A. Churchill, 1927.) 10s. 6d. net.
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Some Famous Medical Trials. Nature 121, 241 (1928). https://doi.org/10.1038/121241a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/121241a0