Medical Jurisprudence

The physician John Ayrton Paris and his co-author J. S. M. Fonblanque published this three-volume work on medical evidence in 1823.

John Ayrton Paris (Author), J. S. M. Fonblanque (Author)

9781108069748, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 17 July 2014

516 pages
21.6 x 14 x 2.9 cm, 0.65 kg

The physician and author John Ayrton Paris (1785–1856), several of whose other medical and popular works have been reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection, and his co-author J. S. M. Fonblanque (1787–1865) published this three-volume work in 1823. It remained almost the only work on the topic of medical jurisprudence for many years. The authors define the term as 'a science by which medicine, and its collateral branches, are made subservient to the construction, elucidation, and administration of the laws; and to the preservation of public health'. Volume 1 considers the context: the professional colleges and their powers and privileges, and historical cases involving a medical practitioner. It also deals with areas of the law where medical evidence may be needed: matrimonial and childbirth issues; insanity; public nuisance (e.g. pollution); and the adulteration of food. The volume ends with the first part of a consideration of unnatural death.

Introduction
Part I: 1. Of the College of Physicians
2. Of the College of Surgeons
3. Of the Society of Apothecaries
4. Of the exemptions and liabilities of medical practitioners
5. Of actions by medical practitioners
6. Of actions against medical practitioners
7. Midwifery
8. Of the preservation of public health
9. Of quarantine
10. Medical police
Bills of mortality
Part II: Introduction
1. Of medical evidence generally
2. Of marriage
3. Of divorce or nullity
4. Of extra-uterine conception
5. Of hermaphrodites
6. Of idiots and lunatics
7. Medical and physiological illustrations of insanity
8. Of nuisances
9. Of impositions
10. Of the adulteration of food
11. Policy of insurance on lives
12. Survivorship
Part III: 1. Introduction
2. Arson
3. Human combustion
4. Rape
5. Of homicide generally
6. Of real and apparent death
7. Of the physiological causes and phenomena of sudden death
8. Of murder generally
9. On the classification of poisons
10. Homicide
Appendix.

Subject Areas: Legal history [LAZ]