Mrs. Wharton's case? The result would certainly have been an unjust
conviction.

In Spain and some other countries of Europe the custom is to refer
the case to the local medical society. If the opinion afterward given
is unanimous, the court is bound by it; if any member object to the
opinion, the case is referred to the medical society of the province;
if the disagreement continue, the matter is brought before the chief
society of the capital. Evidently, this plan would not work well here.
In Prussia it was formerly, and may still be, the custom for an expert
holding a fixed appointment under the government to investigate the
case, and to send his report to the Royal Medical College of Prussia.
A standing committee of this body, after investigating the matter,
sent the original report, with their comments, to the ministry, by
whom it was referred to a permanent commission of experts. The report
of the latter body, with all the other papers, was finally sent to
the criminal court. This method seems complicated, but it resulted in
giving to Prussia the best corps of experts the world has ever seen,
as well as the most eminent individual medical jurists.

It is not, however, the object of the present paper to urge any
especial method of reform, but to call attention to the need of
it, and to show that the present evils do not grow out of the
imperfections of medical jurisprudence, but out of the methods of our
criminal procedures. Certainly, the matter needs investigation, and
it is hardly possible but that some practicable means of relief could
be devised by the deliberations of a mixed commission of lawyers and
medical jurists of eminence.

H.C. WOOD, JR., M.D.