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Firstly, because the cremation process is open to serious medico-legal objections; secondly, because, by the complete resolution of the body into its elementary and inodorous gases in the cremation furnace, that intervening chemical link between the organic and inorganic worlds, the ammonia, is destroyed, and the economy of nature is thereby dangerously disturbed; thirdly, because the natural tendencies of the people lead them still to the earth, as the most fitting resting-place into which, when lifeless, they should be drawn.
I have no doubt, gentlemen, that some of you have been saying to yourselves, Why does the lecturer insist so long upon a point which is so clear? Of course, none of us doubts that we can in no case aid a patient to commit suicide. My reason for thus insisting on this matter is that here again we are dealing with a living issue. There are to-day physicians and others who deny this truth, not in their secret practice only, but, of late, to justify their conduct, they have boldly formulated the thesis that present apparent expediency can lawfully be preferred to any higher consideration. Here is the fact. At a Medico-Legal Congress, held in the summer of 1895, Dr.
"It is interesting, chemically, no doubt," I answered, "but practically " "Why, man, it is the most practical medico-legal discovery for years. Don't you see that it gives us an infallible test for blood stains. Come over here now!" He seized me by the coat-sleeve in his eagerness, and drew me over to the table at which he had been working.
As Pare did not understand Latin he wrote his treatises in French, thus inaugurating a custom in France that was begun by Paracelsus in Germany half a century before. He reintroduced the use of the ligature in controlling hemorrhage, introduced the "figure of eight" suture in the operation for hare-lip, improved many of the medico-legal doctrines, and advanced the practice of surgery generally.
"It was lying on the bottom of the pond in a position which would have been impossible if it had been attached to the arm." "You interest me exceedingly," said Mr. Jellicoe. "It appears that a medico-legal expert finds 'books in the running brooks, sermons in bones, and evidence in everything. But don't let me interrupt you."
"Will you draw up your medico-legal report while I continue my inquest?" "Willingly." And, without waiting, he seated himself at the clerk's desk, facing the commissioner's secretary, who had arrived a few minutes previous. "I am going to make you take the oath," the commissioner said.
"You are attached to the medical school at St. Margaret's Hospital, I believe, Dr. Thorndyke?" said Anstey. "Yes. I am the lecturer on Medical Jurisprudence and Toxicology." "Have you had much experience of medico-legal inquiries?" "A great deal. I am engaged exclusively in medico-legal work." "You heard the evidence relating to the two drops of blood found in the safe?" "I did."
To this peculiarity of the human mind was due, no doubt, the fact that no sooner had I abandoned the clinical side of my profession in favour of the legal, and taken up my abode in the chambers of my friend Thorndyke, the famous medico-legal expert, to act as his assistant or junior, than my former mode of life that of a locum tenens, or minder of other men's practices which had, when I was following it, seemed intolerably irksome, now appeared to possess many desirable features; and I found myself occasionally hankering to sit once more by the bedside, to puzzle out the perplexing train of symptoms, and to wield that power the greatest, after all, possessed by man the power to banish suffering and ward off the approach of death itself.
"My dear fellow," said Jervis, "Thorndyke never forgets a likely case. He is a sort of medico-legal camel. He gulps down the raw facts from the newspapers or elsewhere, and then, in his leisure moments, he calmly regurgitates them and has a quiet chew at them. It is a quaint habit. A case crops up in the papers or in one of the courts, and Thorndyke swallows it whole.
Was all the world in a conspiracy to deride his failure? "I did it, I did it," he muttered sullenly, his rage spending itself against the impenetrable surface of the other's mockery; and Ascham answered with a smile: "Ever read any of those books on hallucination? I've got a fairly good medico-legal library. I could send you one or two if you like..."
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