A dissertation on the effects of partial insanity upon all the mental faculties of a testator : when exposed to the artifices of a cognizant, fraudulent player on disordered animal machinery, exhibiting a review and report of the trials of the last wills and testaments of Charles Hall & Michael Deaderick, of Davidson County, Tennessee : including a philosophical analysis of mind ... / by a medical observer of Nashville.

Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A dissertation on the effects of partial insanity upon all the mental faculties of a testator : when exposed to the artifices of a cognizant, fraudulent player on disordered animal machinery, exhibiting a review and report of the trials of the last wills and testaments of Charles Hall & Michael Deaderick, of Davidson County, Tennessee : including a philosophical analysis of mind ... / by a medical observer of Nashville. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

    7/36
    ADVERTISEMENT. In cases of the character of that now before us, judges should be reminded with much emphasis, that the celebrated writers Heis- ter, Boerhaave and Haller, of Germany; Coke, Haslam and Hale, of England, authorities of the greatest untight and repute in fo--^tA&Utf/^ reign judicatures, as well as in the United States, when speaking d on the occasion of introducing scientific testimony in courts, for Jhe _^ purpose of conveying information to juries, have very propeTry ^^>> remarked, that a physician should not come into court merely to give his opinion, but should be prepared to explain it. and assign the rea sons which influence his decisions; and without such elucidation opinion becomes only an assertion or dictum, claiming precedence g without courtesy or obligation to science; and as the ground on which, fit HVtir evidence is now called for, may admit of some objection to the right of passing the ipse dixit of individual conjectural statement. Jtkshould therefore be insisted, on behalf of these defendant heirs and y their mother, whose right and reputation may be grievously affected 140 by the result of*ta»r inquiry, that it be required of those who may be desired by competent authority, to extend the aid of medical jurisprudence on this occasion, to present their testimony in writing, and in as intelligible language as practicable, with the remarks and reasoning in support of the opinion offered to the court, jury and bar, to prepare them for a satisfactory adjudication of this important state cause, embracing points of some doubt and no small difficulty with the uninformed in the science of juridical medicine. Destitute of which illumination, a jury cannot render justice to parties in such a controversy. And this may be the more necessary, in case a jury is not composed of the three learned professions, to try the will in dis- pute, under every advantage fiom the history of man, and that branch of science treating particularly on the subject of the present investigation; and this will be the more expedient, as the technical language of the professions united in this inquiry, being commonly oi such mysterious obscurity, that most students seem to have acquired only names and phrases without seeing their force and legitimate imnort ; and employ them more from habit than comprehension, which may require an etymologyof words of important meaning; and to express the manifestation of mind and its diseases, by the most familiar expressions generally understood, and clear of the servi- tv le of professional nomenclature. The principal reason for making this request is, that Judge Stuart delivered an opinion in his charge to the former jury, in discrepance with one expressed very emphati- cally on the trial of-a similar case some years ago at Lebanon and at Nashville, and which may have occurred as well for want of capa city to comprehend the doctrine and science exhibited in the able, independent and appropriate address of Patrick Darby, as for want