ព! esquest" the inquest our exertions enforced for coroner that the deceased person was not attended public gained the extraordinary and exciting it. Lord Denman, the head coroner of the at or immediately before his death by any legally spectacle of an inquest of four sittings, extendqualified medical practitioner, it shall be lawfuling through as many weeks; and during seven* kingdom, and the other eminent Judges of the for the coroner to issue such order for the attendQueen's Bench, have sat both over it and the ance of any legally qualified medical practitioner teen days of that time, while the public prints judicial character of the who presided being at the time in actual practice in or near the were diurnally filled with glowing recitals of all a soldier's assassination by flogging, and the The verdict" of the whole court-matured, place where the death has happened; and it shall for the public mind gradually roused to the highest full, decisive, unanimous is against that funct lawful for the coroner, either in his order attendance of the medical witness, or at any time tionary, and for us. The judges of the land between the issuing of such order and the termi- point of excitement, we had a public magishave deliberately and solemnly pronounced nation of the inquest, to direct the performance trate, by the signal violation of almost the only themselves of our opinion on the Hounslow in- of a post-mortem examination, with or without an statute that regulates his proceedings, keeping analysis of the contents of the stomach or intes unheard and unpublished those medical facts vestigation. A 3 sen atrið tines, by the medical witness or witnesses who which would almost demonstratively have proved may be summoned to attend at any inquest; provided that if any person shall state upon oath be the groundlessness of the outcry! Neither Dr. fore the coroner that in his or her belief the Warren is heard, nor Dr. Hall, nor Dr. Reid, death of the deceased individual was caused partly nor Mr. Day, nor Dr. M'Kinlay, during the or entirely by the improper or negligent treat seventeen days of an inquest wholly turning ment of any medical practitioner or other person, such medical practitioner or other person shall on medical testimony he sat at 9 not be allowed to perform or assist at the postmortem examination of the deceased, Now, Dr. Warren attended White during his illness-he was not called; Dr. Hall was present at his bedside before the death he was not called; Dr. Reid had made a post-mortem examiuation he was not called; without hearing one word of their testimony the coroner ordered a post-mortem examination to be made by another-Mr. Day. Had the jury heard Dr. Hall, and Dr. Warren, and Dr. Reid, they would then have been in a legal position to ask further testimony, if needed; and thus, while law would have been satisfied, the opinions of three medical witnesses would have gone abroad, and soothed public excitement. The express judgment of the court on this point proves that the Hounslow inquest was an illegal investigation. That for the first time in English History a coroner demanding from his judicial superiors, legal reparation for the most violent impeach ment of his official character pen could write, should be repelled from the court in the measured language of dignified censure and public ignominy, is a circumstance that might well excuse our indulging the language of exultation and pride. But the triumph-albeit secured at our personal risk—is in results, at least, less ers than that of the profession and the pub bilier Personal considerations, indeed, are lost in the gain it implies to the general weal. A signal instance has been established through us, that public functionaries may not with im punity sacrifice the fair fame of our jurispru"dence and the honest repute of worthy medical men, even if it were not to what the Judges think, the possible need of a public sensation, or the possible convenience of a pecuniary testimonial. No more Dr. Warrens will have their lives or liberty causelessly, wantonly imperilled by the discoveries"-commodiously madeof illegally-appointed post-mortem examination, makers. No more Mr. Days will be stigmatised as unable to examine a dead body, unless helped by a private friend of the coroner. No more Reid's and Halls will have their professional repute damaged, in their enforced absence, by the autopsies of an illegal witness, or be publicly excluded from the inquest they are *summoned to, with the implication that their testimony on oath would otherwise be modified to suit the convenience of upturning cirscumstances. No more statutes passed for the protection of medical men, and their independence as witnesses on coroners' patronage, will be violated to the prejudice of justice and the suffering of impugned but innocent practitioners. We have been the humble instrument of a great public lesson, by which on one side the purity of our jurisprudence, on the other good im standing •portant guaranteed. profession, arence of an It could not have been otherwise. The extra ordinary circumstances that extorted our unqua སྙ lified censures must have elicited from the highest it But the statute still careful that medical witnesses should be independent of inquest for a further need of testimony. It says→→→ patronage-does not stop here, but arranges "And be it further enacted, That whenever it shall appear to the greater number of the jury men sitting at any coroner's inquest, that the cause of death has not been satisfactorily ex plained by the evidence of the medical practitioner or other witness or witnesses who may be ex amined in the first instance, such greater number of the jurymen are hereby authorized and em. powered to name to the coroner in writing any other legally qualified medical practitioner or practitioners, and to require the coroner to issue his order, in the form herein before mentioned, for the attendance of such last-mentioned medical practitioner or practitioners as a witness or wit nesses, and for the performance of a past-mortem examination, with or without an analysis of the contents of the stomach or intestines, whether such an examination has been performed before or not; and if the coroner, having been thereunto required, shall refuse to issue such order, he shall be punishable in like manner as if the same were be deemed guilty of a misdemeanour, and shall a misdemeanour at common law." Now, Mr. Day, aided by his partner, Dr. M'Kinlay, having made the post-mortem ex amination, is ready to give his testimony as the statute requires. It is, however, not allowed. On the plea that the spine, though in the last stage of decomposition, was the part by which the great fact of death by flogging was to be ascertained, Mr. Day was not heard; and, after two adjournments, another of seven days was ordered, that a third post-mortem examination by a London surgeon should be made. And thus, by a double violation of the statute, the · The delay was against law it was not less so against reason and equity. The public mind is not the better for the unnecessary prolongation of an unjust and fervid excitement: justice is not served by judges stooping to lend that excitement their aid: Colonel Whyte, Dr. Warren, and the persons on whom this painful military duty had been enforced, had, needlessly long, their domestic peace and personalerepute injured, their freedom placed in jeopardy: military discipline was threatened and imperilled; and a court of justice extraordinary spectacle -made the focus of a nation's agitation. 57 3* The coroner, however, swears that till the " 27th day of July the third day of adjournment, and seventeenth day of the inquest he did not know what the opinions of the medical men were as to the cause of death, and, therefore, could have sought no end by this postponement. But surely he has lapsed into a mistake. The Rev. Mr. Turner, the cause of the inquest, had received before the inquest a certificate of Drs. Warren, Hall, and Reid, distinctly predicating the cause of death. Constable Brent, before the inquest, had, by the coroner's orders, received from Dr. Warren a full account of the post-mortem examination made by these gentlemen, as well as their opinion on the cause of death. Sergeant Potter-we have his affidavit to the fact on the first day of the inquest, had distinctly stated that conjoint opinion. Mr. Fox Maule, on the 21st of July, had notified the opinions of all the medical men in the House of Commons; and even the coroner, in summing up, gives the fact of these physicians' post-mortem examination, and their decided opinions, as his and rereason for declining their authority, quently of Mr. Wilson. We may not unreasonquiring the services of Mr. Day, and subseably suppose, then, that he knew early even on the first day of the inquest the character of their opinions: we are pretty sure he knew the provisions of the violated statute, for it is the statute on which he summons and pays medical witnesses; and it is for our readers to say whether he could doubt that the evidence, illegally and oddly excluded, would, if published, have operated to the relief of parties unjustly assailed, and to the soothing of a public mind groundlessly excited. T A But the "spine" having to be examined, as discovered only on the fifth day of the in quest, Mr. Day, whom the jury, it is sworn, had selected for his high probity and ability, is not the gentleman now confided in, nor indeed any surgeon of what the statute describes as the neighbourhood." The coroner wants the "most competent person," and therefore illegally names to the jury-whom? Mr. W. J. E. Wilson-confessedly an intimate private friend -his former sub-editor, and a person under many obligations to him, and to whom he has given, as he admits, twenty-five warrants for post-mortem examinations, as far as we are able to gather, more than half the post-mortem examinations that West Middlesex for years has coronotorially been made acquainted with. After the jury's illegal appointment of Mr. Wilson, Mr. Wakley meets him by accident in Oxford-street, and the witnessship is settled in the interview. Mr. Wilson examines the body, twice dissected and twelve days dead, in the enforced absence of Drs. Warren, Reid, and Hall -finds in a musele farthest from the skin of the back a little softness or pulpiness, hastened, probably, by imbibition of the purulent fluids in the thoracic cavity; and on no further evidence than a spot of decomposition, and in the teeth of scientific evidence, the most conclusive of acute thoracic disease, is able to swear that he has "no doubt" the man White "died from flogging"; that "without the flogging he would be alive then," and that the public excite ment, therefore, was well grounded. Dr. Warren's evidence is not received except as the unsworn testimony of a man accused of man slaughter or murder. He, therefore, and his adverse information are got rid of by the coroner. Dr. M'Kinlay is not summoned; his adverse testimony is, therefore, declined also, and troubles nobody. There remain Dr. Reid, Dr. Hall, and Mr. Day-still three against one;, three surgeons backed in their opinion by every fact in the case, and every phenomenon in the autopsy-save one- -the spot of decomposition! Mr. Wilson had that, and, having that, naturally enough carried with it the coroner and jury! Thus, then, the statute was violated, the adverse witnesses illegally postponed, the friendly witness illegally chosen, and then met by accident, and, finally, the army surgeons illegally excluded from inquest-room and post-mortem examinations. Why? Not for nothing. Mr. Wilson exactly supplied what was wanting. The "SPINE," it is true, yielded nothing; the skin nothing; the internal organs nothing; but then he made a " discovery" not to be found in books, and that yielded exactly the conclusive testimony! The spot of decomposition was as strong inculpation, nay, stronger than the five others' facts were for exculpation; and the coroner, having found all he wanted in his friend, did not feel it necessary to hazard the bringing in another eminent man to see how far Mr. Wilson's "discovery" would admit of support, bear the test of examination, or show a visible existence except in the enforced absence of the medical men most interested in observing it. But we have said enough. When a careful view of three inquest-sittings, extending through as many weeks, roused our indignation at the immolation of innocent men, flung, by one who should have shielded them, to the mercy of an excited public opinion, without a protector or advocate, and thus moved, we made bold to outface the flood of popular prejudice, and call the coroner to account in the very mid-career of his intoxicating triumph, we could personally have entertained little expectation of any ultimate success, except that ever-enduring success of well-meaning minds-satisfaction at the discharge of a duty of charity and justice. Well, therefore, may we rejoice that Right, though overwhelmed for a time, has at length vindicated its divine prerogative of ultimate ascendancy, and that, by the instrumentality of the august Court of Queen's Bench, we have on side aspersed honour, vindicated and rewarded abashed, and for ever overthrown. —and adroit oppression, on the other, detected, one A SURGICAL PROFESSORSHIP. WE announced last week that Mr. Paget has been chosen Professor of Surgery to the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Many, knowing our hostility to the Council of that unfortunate Club, have fancied that we were indulging a practical joke at its expense, and essaying how far imagination, on our side, could carry us in fancying the most startling of absurdities, and how far, on that of the public, people knowing the Council would be willing to give credence to the monstrosity. Alas, how mighty dull is the world! Have we not often enough laid down the only axiom that can be applied with accuracy to the doings of this drollest of scientific juntos? Have we not often enough affirmed, that when a man wants to know with certitude their next act, he has only to sit down and fix on the most absurd his imagination can supply? That the appointment of Mr. Paget is absurd-that its announcement looks unquestionably a hoax-that a reasonable man might even see him in the professional chair and yet rationally enough, yielding to the force of moral testimony, refuse to believe his senses is the reason, the very reason, why there can be no doubt of the certitude of the fact. There is in such matters, in truth, more than the brevity and force of syllogistic reasoning. It is absurd therefore the Council have done it. We wish not to be understood as undervaluing the ability of Mr. Paget. None will bear more willing or liberal testimony to his merits as a physiologist than ourselves. We are proud of the physiological distinction he has, in our opinion at least, so fully, if early, vindicated for himself. We would be the last to detach one leaf from the laurel wreath with which a part, at least, and a worthy part of the profession would decorate his brow. On the contrary-we say to him, "As a young man, you have done much: the field you have chosen is far from explored: proceed, and, by not diverging, show that the homage we have paid, as much to your promise as to your performance, has neither been unearned nor unappreciated." But it is one thing to bear handsome testimony to a young man's physiological industry, and another to offer him to Great Britain and Ireland as the Gamaliel of modern surgery. Just, indeed, in the proportion of our friendliness to Mr. Paget would be our anxiety to save him from a position of which he, of all the world, must be the most conscious of un deserving. Strange would be the blindness and the infatuation which would leave him ignorant of the fact so well known to all others, that the partisan fervour that now encompasses him is a fervour that but glows to destroy-that but raises to dash down, No man, if this ap pointment be completed, will have more cause than he to complain of the unkindness of too much kindness or more reason, to deplore the calamity of having shown merit. His immolation on the altar of surgery will be the sad price of the devotion paid by him to that of physiology; and we shall have in him another illustration that "ex quovis ligno "—there is not made a Priapus, more than a Mercury. It would, of course, be very unreasonable, and almost give evidence of some harmless insanity, to ask from the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons of England the appointment of a Professor of Surgery who could adequately represent our science in the eyes of Britain and of the Continent. To harbour so reasonable an expectation would be the surest evidence that we did not know our men, But, surely, if we might not expect the selection of a Fergusson, a Phillips, a Partridge, or a Quain, we might yet have looked forward to the appointment of a man who had really seen and had some tolerable share of surgical practice, and whose distinction it was not that he had not devoted himself to surgery. Mr. Paget became a member of the College of Surgeons, comparatively, but yesterterday, his diploma not dating beyond 1836. He has never been surgeon to any hospital or public institution; his comparative youth, his laudable devotion to physiology, and his numerous essays on the subject, as well as his Wardenship of the Bartholomew College-these circumstances put any extensive private practice without the pale of possibility; on what pretext, then, or reason, can he be selected, to the rejection of hundreds of others, to stand forward-how rude a trial for him!-to teach surgery to thousands of gentlemen in every way-in years, in surgical practice and knowledge-his seniors and superiors? We have but one explanation. Have the Council resolved that the public orations and lectures their charters enforce on them shall not be wholly useless or uninteresting?—that, if conveying no instruction to the public, they shall administer, at least, some little satisfaction to themselves; and have they hence ingeniously converted them into practical insults on the oftinsulted members? Certainly there is better taste and more argument, if the object be to prove the members "geese," in making Mr. Paget teach them surgery, than in instructing Mr. Lawrence to apply to them-to their faces too-the epithet itself: a Paget-taught auditory of surgeons require neither the acumen nor the high breeding of a Lawrence to indicate their true name, especially if they have wisely undergone beforehand the operation of having had extracted their golden egg-the twentyguinea-diploma fee. In dismissing this subject for the present we cannot avoid the remark, that amidst the decline and fall of the College there is one utility it yet promises to possess-that of a snug sort of appanage to Bartholomew's Hospital. The president is imposed on it by Bartholomew's; so is it vice-president. The conservator is a Bartholomew man; its only two professors enjoy the same distinction. It has one chemical analyst-Mr. Taylor-and he comes from Bartholomew's; and of its three students, two come from the same quarter. Indeed, all things considered, the College will not be entirely itself tolus teres et rotundus-nor have reached its true destiny, until it shall wholly and beyond a doubt have sunk into a back office of that ancient charity taking its rulers from the hospital on much the same principle as it takes its other Bubjects from the neighbouring Institution, Newgate! COURT OF QUEEN'S BENCH, Jan. 30, 1847. (Before Lord Chief Justice DENMAN, Mr. Justice COLERIDGE, and Mr. Justice WIGHTMAN.) THE QUEEN V. COOKE AND ANOTHER. Mr. Cockburn said he appeared to show cause against a rule for a criminal information obtained at the instance of Mr. Wakley, coroner for the western division of the county of Middlesex. An inquest was held on the body of F. John White, a private soldier of the 7th Hussars, who suffered the punishment of flogging on the 15th of June, 1846, and died on the 11th of July. The inquest was held on the 15th of July, when it was adjourned a week. The alleged libel appeared in the Medical Times, of August 1st, and was an article commenting on the proceedings at the inquest and the conduct of the coroner. The best course would be to read first the alleged libel, and next the affidavits on each side. Lord Denman: You speak of comments. Not comments, I suppose, on what has passed out of court, but comments on what has passed in court? Mr. Cockburn: Comments on what has passed in court, of course; but there are other comments necessary also, such, for instance, as will arise out of the affidavits as to the proceedings of Mr. Wakley, calculated to make good the position that he is not a person entitled to come to this court for protection by means of any extraordinary power with which the law may have invested it. The grounds on which I ask your lordship to consider this case favourably to the defendant is, that the affidavits show so much in the conduct of the coroner which is irregular, both in the mode of conducting the inquest and in his own conduct subsequently, in commenting on the alleged libel, openly at a public meeting, and in the House of Commons, as to disentitle him to come here and ask at your lordships' hands the extraordinary protection which he is now here to seek'; from which your lordships will see that he has carried the liberty of commenting on the conduct of others to its full extent, and has been in the habit of taking liberties both in speech and in print, and is therefore not the man who should come here to ask for criminal informations against persons following his own example. I will read to your lordships that article complained of, from the Medical Times, of Aug. 1, 1846. It begins with a quotation from "Lear": See how yon justice rails upon yon simple thief. Hark, in thine ear: change places; and, handy dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief? * Get thee glass eyes; and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see the things thou dost not." And goes on to say:"Never were we more convinced that, in the Indignation at a large abuse, all sense of its minor contingencies is often prejudiced and marvellously misled, than while ruminating on the circumstances of the late inquest on White, the alleged victim of flogging barbarities. As a whole, such a gross— Lord Denman: I don't see much benefit in reading all this now. I suppose it will have to be read again by-and-by? Mr. Cockburn: My lord, it is difficult to separate one part from another. Perhaps the shortest way will be to take the whole as it stands, and I shall afterwards remark upon such passages as I may think most important. Lord Denman: Very well. while it is as at present, military judges can do nothing but enforce it. "Secondly. The administration of the punishof severity. White enjoyed, it is fair to presume, ment was attended by no peculiar circumstances the customary robust health of a young English soldier on constant duty. Dr. Warren, after a minute examination, certified, under official responsibility, to the fact. The fiogging was perfectly of the usual character; the evidence, though somewhat discrepant, leaning to the supposition that it was rather lighter than severer; and Dr. Warren's non-interference favouring the hypothesis. The flogging took place on the 15th of June; the usual course to convalescence went on till July the 4th, when he was officially declared well and fit for duty: but instead of being discharged betrayed on that day commencing symptoms of some on the 6th, to his duty, as it was intended, White internal disease. For the first time he complained of Mr. Cockburn resumed his reading :"As a whole, such a gross, perverse, and hideous caricature on English administrative justice, in the name of justice, we never witnessed. Beyond the unvoidable good of subjecting to public animadversion the Vandalism of all military flogging, there is not a feature presented to us judicially in that investigation, that commands respect, or deserves thing absolutely execrable in the coroner's farcical aught but censure or contumely. There was someimpersonation of judgeship. Legal axioms, and the spirit of English jurisprudence, make the judge pains in the region of the heart. After five days? the counsel of the accused: here the coroner had no illness, he died on the 11th of July, evidently of an thought, word, or act, save for inculpation. Coroner acute disease-twenty-seven days after the flogging. Wakley seemed like a man compromised to infamy, Dr. John Hall, a staff-surgeon, sent down to or worse-personal unhappiness-if it should be Hounslow to see the patient on the day of his proved that White died without murderous guilt death, thus describes the progress of the disease, in in some survivor. This medical magistrate would a letter written on the same day to Sir James evidently not conceive the hypothesis that some M'Gregor :-'White, it appears, received a corporal brother medical practitioner had not betrayed the punishment of 150 lashes on the 15th of June, for trust of humanity, and proved himself an assassin. military insubordination, which was inflicted in the The anxiety of the merciful president of this dig- usual manner, in the presence of Dr. Warren, and nified court appeared to be to clothe every act with without any degree of severity calculated to attract criminality, and strip every circumstance of inno-more than any degree of ordinary attention. His cence. He coaxes private soldiers into conjectural back healed kindly, and nothing occurred to mark charges, and tries to bully medical witnesses out of his case until the morning of the 6th instant, the honest convictions--all to throw blood at the door day on which he was to have been discharged from of a worthy medical brother. He suggests, in- the hospital to his duty, when he began to comsinuates, applauds, encourages, assails-twists, plain of pain in the region of the heart, extending twirls, and manoeuvres-in every shape, form, and through to the back and shoulder blade, which indirection, to conjure up against an honest practi- creased in severity, notwithstanding the measures tioner à fictitious semblance of murder! Why all adopted by Dr. Warren for its relief, until yester this? Why this reckless sacrifice of good men's day morning, when paralysis of the lower extremi repute and peace of mind? Why this needless ties and retention of urine were discovered, and he display of ingenuity to get up against Dr. Warren, died, as I have stated above, at a quarter past eight or failing him, Colonel Whyte, or failing him, the o'clock this morning."" farrier, a colourable semblance of murder? There is of course but one reply-Wakley wants a public sensation to help his fortunes in a forthcoming elcction. There is something to excite the gravest reflection in this frightful prostitution of an English magistracy to the purposes of a popularity-seeking politician. There is no knowing where it may end or to what perils it may carry us. The very needs of a fiercely competing press, deprived of great political events for discussion, yet requiring for successful sustenance the aid of strong popular sensations-the very needs of such a press suggest fearful dangers from this unscrupulous use, by judges, of the machinery of law to the purposes of political emergencies. Not only is the whole idea of administrative justice brought into disrepute by the incongruous melodrama, but an illicit means of popular power is evoked, which, supported by anything like character and sustained ability, would lead to very great public mischief. "Flogging is an institution of the army, rude and brutal, that cannot too soon be done away with. If our soldiers be of so low a nature that they are ungovernable without it, the causes of the anomalous degradation should be removed, that our country may be relieved at once of a horrible evil, and, if possible, a still more horrible corrective. But flogging being an existing legality, to be administered by the officers of the army, with no more chance of escape than a judge of the land possesses when called on to execute the worst law on the statute-book, it behoves us, as a first duty in an inquiry like this over White, not without the strongest possible grounds of inculpation to throw the inevitable evils of a bad system on those whose duties make them its administrators. Now, what are the facts of this case which distinguish it from any others occurring under the operation of military law? "First. The sentence-150 lashes-though severe, is below the average punishment customarily awarded by military law for the offence-an assault on an unarmed superior officer with a murderous weapon, a poker. If the law be bad, correct it: Here, my lords, is inserted a statement of the post-mortem examination of the body made by Dr. John Hale, in the presence of Dr. Warren. surgeon of the 7th Hussars, and Dr. Reid, Assistant-StaffSurgeon of the army, a staff surgeon of the first class, twenty-four hours after death:-"Post-mortem examination of private Frederick White, of the 7th Hussars, aged 27, made 24 hours after death, in presence of Staff-Surgeon Dr. Hale, Surgeon Dr. Warren, 7th Hussars, and Assistant Staff-Surgeon Dr. Reid. "General Appearance.-Body muscular, and not much wasted; marks of venesection at the bend of the right arm; marks of a blister on the epigastrium, and of another on the back, below the scapula; marks of corporal punishment across the shoulders, particularly over the right scapula, but the punishment does not appear to have been severe, and the part where it was inflicted was quite healed; back discoloured from the gravitation of blood since his decease. Thorax-right side-old adhesions binding the lung to the ribs and diaphragm throughout its whole extent: left side -inflammation of the pleura, with recent adhesions, and effusion of serum, containing shreds of lymph to the extent of 12 oz.: lung engorged and infiltrated with serum. Heart.-Muscular tissue soft and friable throughout; endocarditis on both sides of the heart, the inflammation extending some distance along the pulmonary artery, and over the valves of the aorta; cordæ tendineæ of the tricuspid valve matted together with fibrine; pericardium healthy, and not containing more than its natural quantity of fluid. Abdomen.-Liver enlarged, and extending three inches below the margin of the ribs, but not altered in colour or structure, though there are old traces of inflammation on the peritoneal covering of the right lobe; gall-bladder small, and containing a portion of pale-coloured bile; kidneys, bladder, and spleen healthy; intestines distended with gas, but healthy. Head.-Dura mater healthy; pia mater injected, and the tunica arachnoides opaque in several places, similar to what is gene rally found in confirmed drunkards; lateral ven 364 tricles capacious but empty; plexus choroides enlarged, and the veins running along the floors of the ventricles distended; substance of the brain marked with bloody points when cut into, and f softened at one point on its under surface. A portion of integument was dissected from off the shoulders and spine, where he had been punished, and all the parts underneath were found perfectly sound and natural. The integument itself, with the exception of some discoloration of the cutis 1 vera, was quite healthy. "JOHN HALL, M.D., Staff Surgeon, First Class. 1 1 “July 13." T The next document quoted in the allegation is a certificate, signed by the three medical men who attended the post-mortem examination : "Cavalry Barracks, Hounslow, July 13. "Having made a careful post-mortem examina tion of private Frederick White, of the 7th Hussars, we are of opinion that he died from inflammation of the pleura and of the lining membrane of the heart; and we are further of opinion that the cause of death was in nowise connected with the corporal punishment he received on the 15th of June last, יו. "JOHN HALL, M.D., Staff Surgeon, "J. L. WARREN, Surgeon, 7th Hussars. "F. REID, M.D., Assistant Staff Sur." Then follows the evidence of Dr. Hall, Dr. Reid, and Mr. Day of Isleworth. "Dr. Hall tells us :-"He was treated for inflammation of the pleura of the heart. There were found, on examination, old and strong adhesions on the right side of the heart, and inflammation and recent adhesions on the left side. The pleura pulmonalis and pleura costalis were inflamed; the lungs were not inflamed. The pulmonary artery and the aorta were inflamed for an inch and a half; the pulmonary vein was very slightly inflamed. The inflammation extended from the heart to the larger vessels. There was no inflammation of the pericardium. The cause of death was inflammation of the heart and pleura, but it was impossible to say what was the cause of that inflammation. I have seen the history of the case given in the register, and I should ascribe the inflammation to the change of temperature at the time the deceased was recovering. A change of weather, bringing rain and cold winds after great heat, took place in the end of June. A corporal in the regiment I know died yesterday from inflammation of the lungs. I do not think that the death of White had any connection with the punishment he received.' traces of inflammation on the left pleura, but I suit the wants of his friend the coroner, swears · We give this worthy person's evidence from the Times. A more unblushing piece of professional quackery, got up between himself and the coroner, including the address of the practitioner, we never read; and we will only further observe in reference to it, for the sake of our unprofessional readers, that Mr. Wilson's discovery is not mended by the ingenious device of extending the alleged pulpy degeneration of the muscle to the adjoining part of the external intercostals muscles to which he has vaguely alluded, prudently, however, withholding their name for reasons known to every anatomist and physiologist. "Mr. Erasmus Wilson, the next witness called, said :-I reside at 55, Charlotte-street, Fitzroysquare, and my profession is that of a surgeon. I am a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh; Consulting Surgeon to the Royal College of Surgeons of London, and Lecturer on Anatomy and Physiology. Some years ago I was Demonstrator in the University College. I have written a work on diseases of the skin, and another work entitled Healthy Skin, which I am happy to say is out of print. Mr. Wilson then read the following statement of the observations made by him on examining the body of the deceased, and the conclusions which he drew from those observations:of 38 yd te rolub -The article then goes on to say-"One might fancy that with all this evidence of four medical men, all in strict coherence and mutual support and with all this natural sequence of morbid phenomena which are occurring in everyday practice that there was really very little of the mysterious, or the marvellous, or the extraordinary, in this poor man's death. Every circumstance, indeed, seems to have concurred to strip the business of what, in theatrical language, may be described a startling situation or dazzling effect. But the sagacious, popularity-seeking coroner was not to be disappointed. He had opened the public's mouth with wonder and curiosity, and it would be hard indeed if, with his unscrupulous ingenuity, he could not get something wherewith to fill or amuse it. Accordingly his protége, Mr. E. Wilson, formerly sub-editor of the Lancet, Wakley's ambulatory post-mortem man,' as he is generally called, was despatched to exhume the body a fortnight after the death the three surgeons whose characters were implicated in the examination being carefully excluded by a special order of the prudent coroner (that coroner who inakes such public scenes to have the accused present at inquests to hear the evidence alleged against them). A body in the last stage of decomposition, after a fortnight's interment, during the heat of one of the hottest of summers, is an excellent subject for finding in it whatever may be wanted; and the coroner's scientific hanger-on and partner in post-mortem fees is not long in finding out a pathological discovery which had never been made before,'-we quote his own words-'A discovery not to be found in any volume yet published.' The microscope, that disenchanting instrument, which, in the hands of the youthful, ardent, unscrupulous, fame-seeking discoverer, has penetrated already the innermost recesses of organic nature, shown us the primordial cell of this nether world, verified by intuitive 3616 On Wednesday, July 22, I made a post-mortem evidence, the wildest theories of the Greek examination of the deceased, my attention being philosophers, and through which the imagi- especially directed to his back and spine. On the native anatomist may, with every facility, see skin over each shoulder there were marks of lashes, whatever he likes, shifting his glasses with phantas- and on the right of the middle line between the magoric effect, this wonderful instrument of talis-shoulders there was a large gap, occasioned by the manic qualities enabled the writer of Healthy Skin,' removal of a portion of the skin. A small bottle a book, he is happy to say, that is out of print,' to containing a piece of skin was handed to me by the detect in the deepest muscles of a putrid corpse in- sergeant of police. I took the skin from the bottle, juries they never could bave sustained-muscles un- and found that, though much shrunk by immersion approachable even by convulsive action-and to in spirits of wine, while the gap from which it had discover' that they occupy a position in regard been removed was stretched to its utmost, yet that to the membranes of the chest which they have it corresponded with the gap, with the exception of never been known to hold since the creation! We the side nearest the middle line, where a part had appeal to the common sense of any medical man, been cut away and lost. I was informed that the if credence can be placed in the testimony of any last piece had been cut away in order to make the writer-whether he be a book-compiler or not- remainder sufficiently small to enter the bottle. who tells a public court that the multifidus spinæ From the position which the last piece occupied, lies on the membranes of the chest; that an in- I believe it was more protected from the flammatory action, arising from a disorganized lashes than the preserved portion, and, theremascle, can traverse a plate of bone of at least half fore, being less interesting, in a medical point an inch in thickness; and that a muscle whose of view, had been cut off. On the preactions at all times must be of the feeblest character served portion of the skin there had been (and which in the grown man is of a half-tendinous several marks made by lashes; the marks were "Mr. H. G. Day, M. R.C.S. and L,A.S., says:→ structure, and therefore not susceptible of the red, and, upon cutting into one of them, I found I live in Church-street, Isleworth. During his life I smallest action under any circumstances) can be that the redness, which was indicative of inflam did not see the deceased man, but on the Thursday suddenly seized with convulsions which spare the mation, extended through the entire substance of after the death, I examined the body in the pre- enormous and energetic super-imposed masses of the skin. On raising the muscles or flesh from sence of my partner, at the barracks. I knew muscle from the longissimus dorsi to the integu- off the ribs and spine, I find a part of the deepest nothing of the history of the case previously. Iment; masses of muscle so susceptible of con- line of muscles, viz., that which lies in contact opened the cavity of the chest and abdomen, and vulsive action themselves that, from a slight injury with the bones, in a state of disorganization, and found the parts very much decomposed, and, of to the foot or head, they bend the body back converted into a soft pulp; in medical language, course, out of their usual position. The heart into an arch, presenting the frightful appear- I should call this a pulpy softening of the muscles. appeared rather smaller than usual, and of a ance of opisthotonos. We are almost ashamed The seat of this pulpy softening was the sixth and softened texture. It had been cut open in each to dilate on the ignorance and bad intention seventh ribs, near their attachment to the spine, direction. I saw nothing decided about the lining of this enormous blunder, including under it together with their intervening space, and the holof the heart, though it appeared rather inflamed a succession of blunders, any one of which low between the sixth and seventh pieces of the and redder than usual. The lungs appeared would be damning to the youngest country spine. The extent of the disorganization was about gorged, particularly the left side. There were apothecary. The Healthy Skin' gentleman, to three inches in length, by about one fnch and a half "Dr. Reid says:- I have heard Dr. Hall's evidence, and agree in it. I look on the endocarditis as the immediate cause of death. The lining membrane of the heart was of a deep red, and this was not from the imbibition of blood, for it was not present; nor was it from decomposition, for the heart was not decomposed. The membrane was thickened by effused fibrine, and soft and slightly adherent. The membrane itself was readily torn from the heart, showing the decreased vital cohesion, and there were polypiform concretions of uncoloured fibrine adherent to and interlacing the fleshy columns and the corde tendineæ. That proves the inflammation to have been recent. In the left lung there was pneumonia in the first stage, but I do not attach much importance to that. The marks of pleurisy on the right side, and of inflammation in the liver, were of old standing.' # -- in greatest breadth, and between a quarter and half an inch in thickness. In the space between the ribs the muscles had undergone this pulpy alteration, even so deep as the lining membrane of the chest, the softened muscles being in absolute con1tact with the lining membrane; that portion of the flesh which occupied the groove of the spine, and had undergone a similar disorganization, was fone of the little muscles known to medical men under the name of the multifidus spina. In addition to softening of this little muscle, it was Ar partly surrounded with blood. It was in a state medically called ecchymosed; the interior of the spine was in a state of extreme decompoosition; the tissue between the spinal canal and - spinal sheaths was filled with a dark-coloured -ye fluid, he resulting from decomposition; the big sheath itself was smooth and polished on ten its internal surface a state indicative of 7 health; it was perfectly devoid of nervous -substance, which had been converted into fluid by decomposition, and had flowed away. The fernorves remained, and presented a healthy appearfreeance, so that, so far as the spine is concerned, I 194 discovered, no indication of disease. Two questions Tnaturally arise out of the preceding examination༄༅། first, what was the cause of the pulpy softening of Jat the muscles? secondly, could the state of disordganization, preceding the pulpy softening, influence inthe disease existing in the chest? The cause of the to pulpy softening I believe to have been the excessive ext contraction of the muscles taking place during the Santhagony of punishment. This excessive contraction would produce laceration, subsequent inflammation of the muscles, and the inflammation, instead of b. being reparative, would, in consequence of the despressed state of the powers of the nervous system of the sufferer, be of the disorganizing kind which rePeults in pulpy softening. Had the man lived the to disorganization of the muscles would, in time, have been repaired. As regards the second question, there can be no doubt that, although the common cause of inflammation of the contents of the chest is cold, acting in conjunction with physical or moral depression, and might have been the cause in the case of the deceased, yet the presence of a I portion of muscle in a state of disorganization and inflammation, in close contact with the lining memqrane of the chest, might be adequate to the production of the same effect. Certainly no surgeon would feel comfortable with regard to the state of gud his patient if he were aware of such dangerous proximity." 199 1 I now come to the second alleged libel inserted in the paper of the same date, which is in the form v of an anonymous letter from a correspondent of the Medical Times, addressed to the editor, and signed S" Fair Play," It is headed, "Mr. Wakley and his Fidus Achates," and reads as follows: 3 66 SIR,—In reading the evidence of Mr. Erasmus Wilson, before the coroner at Hounslow, on the flogging case, I was painfully struck with the incorrectness, to say nothing of the animus, of the witness, displayed in that evidence. Mr. Wilson is not a fair witness in this case, dod for the following reasons:-Mr. Wilson and Mr. od Wakley have been intimately connected for several or years. Mr. Wilson was tutor to Mr. Wakley's son, Thomas, junior. Mr. Wakley orders Mr. Wilson (his intimate friend) to examine the spine of the dead soldier, whose body had been twice examined before, informing him, at the same time, that he (Mr. Wakley) had a notion there was something wrong with the spine, which the other surgeons did not find out. 1. Mr. Wilson obeys orders, and incontinently discovers a mare's nest, as much to please the *) coroner as for the purpose of puffing himself at the Spb inquest. The mare's nest is called by Mr. Wilson 109a pulpy softening of the muscles, which morbid oo condition, he claims the honour of being the first to discover. Out A This pulpy state of muscle is nothing else than decomposition of the parts, infiltrated by blood from gravitation, in a body which was dead for ... more than a fortnight before Mr. Wilson opened it, and in the hottest weather known for forty years. In the course of his evidence, Mr. Wilson congratuehab dates himself and the jury on what do you think? whole case is evidently a got-up one-Mr. "That the effects of the lash penetrated through that he discovered the real cause of death ?-No of the regiment with whips; that the jury met on such thing; but that his books are out of print! the 15th of July, and were sworn; that finding a and then proceeds to edify the jury with his medical post-mortem examination had been made, and that pedigree, with the sanction of the coroner. What the back had not been further examined than by had all this to do with the case in point? the removal of a portion of the skin, and that the "If Mr. Wakley wanted to puff his friend, he muscles and spine had not been examined by disshould confine himself to the pages of the Lan-section, and that the surgeons who had made the cet, where, by-the-by, he abuses all puffery and post-mortem examination had come to a final conquackery unconnected with himself, and not stul, clusion as to the cause of death, the nature or terms tify the profession and impede justice by such silly of which he, the deponent, was altogether unacpuffing twaddle as passed between himself and his quainted with."-I (Mr. Cockburn) request your atsurgeon on Monday Inst. tention to that point, as I shall be able to show your 66 The lordship there is reason to believe that the coroner was acquainted with their opinion.—“That he, the deponent, requested the jury to name some surgeon in whose judgment they could place confidence, to make an examination of the body, that his evidence might be heard at an adjourned inquest, and that, with the other surgeons who had examined the body, he might state his opinion as to the cause of death. That the jury nominated Mr. Horatio Grosvenor Day to examine the body, and that he, the deponent, signed an order to that effect, and adjourned the court to the 20th of July. That on the appointed day the court sat again, and after taking evidence as to the nature and extent of punishment received by White, and his condition before and after, be was about to proceed with the medical evidence, when, from a casual remark that fell from Mr. Day before he was sworn, he was led to inquire of Mr. Day, if he had examined the muscles of the back and spine of the body? when Mr. Day said he had not thought it necessary, nor had he done so; but that he considered he had made a complete examination, and that he had ascertained the cause of death, although he had not examined the back and muscles; that this deponent observed to and before the jury, that in his (the coroner's) opinion, Mr. Day, by omitting such examination, had involved the court in a difficulty, and that, in discharge of his duty, he could not take any medical testimony as to the cause of the death of White, until a further pos nortem examination, of the body had been made; and that he, the deponent, thought this the more necessary, as it appeared at the inquest that the deceased had lost the use of his lower extremities two days before death; that, at the close of the business of the inquest on the 20th of July, after the room had been cleared of strangers, he was requested by the jury to name some surgeon living in London, having no connection with any of the parties concerned, or with the neighbourhood, to make an examination of the body; and that the deponent then stated he should appoint Mr. James Erasmus Wilson for that purpose, upon which this deponent adjourned the court until July 27; that, in passing along Oxford-street, on his return from the inquest, he, by accident, met Mr. Wilson, whom he informed that he had just returned from an inquest, at which he, the deponent, had named him, Mr. Wilson, as a surgeon to complete the examination of the body, and that the surgeon who had examined It already had omitted to examine the back or spine, and asked him, Mr. Wilson, if it would be convenient, to do so, and attend and give evidence on the inquest; and that Mr. Wilson consented; that be, the coroner, afterwards gave to Mr. Wilson the usual legal authority for so doing; and that, from the time of meeting Mr. Wilson in Oxford-street on the 20th of July, until the examination at the inquest on the 27th of April, he, this deponent, had no communication with him upon or relating to his, Mr. These, my lords, are the alleged libels on which the Attorney-General obtained the rule. I now beg to call your lordships' attention to the affidavit made by Mr. Wakley; it is a long document; I shall, therefore, present the principal points as briefly as possible. Mr. Wakley states that "he is one of the coroners for the county of Middlesex, and that on the 14th day of July last he was waited upon by a police-officer, who was the bearer of a letter purporting to be written by the Rev. Mr. Trimmer, the vicar of Heston, in the county of Middlesex, and addressed to this deponent, in which the writer informed him that application had been made to him, the vicar, to bury the body of a soldier then lying in Hounslow Barracks; that he, the vicar, had made inquiry of the sergeant as to the cause of the death of the soldier, and in formed him, Mr. Wakley, that he had notified to the commanding officer by the sergeant, that in his opinion it was of importance that an inquest should be held, and that he, therefore, submitted the facts to him, the coroner, for the exercise of his judgment thereon." The letter was signed, "H. 8. Trimmer," and dated from Heston Vicarage, July 14, 1846. The affidavit goes on to say," that in consequence of this letter he, the deponent, sent a message to William Brent, the constable at Heston, directing him to proceed to the barracks and see the body of the soldier; that, before the message reached Hounslow, William Brent, the constable, himself waited on him, bearing a message from Henry Pownall, Esq., a magistrate for Middlesex, informing him of the death of the said soldier, and that certain reports were abroad as to the cause of death. That this deponent ordered Mr. Brent to make inquiries at the barracks, concerning the death of the said F. J. White, and make report to him; and that when he had done so, in consequence of the information given in that report, and of the communication made by Mr. Pownall, he, the deponent, issued his warrant, directing the constable to summon a jury to meet on the 15th of July, to make inquiry concerning the death of White; that he, the deponent, was informed that the said White had been a private in the 7th Regiment of Hussars, and had died in the regimental hospital on the 11th of July, having received on the 15th of June, under sentence of court-martial, 150 lashes on his back and shoulders, inflicted by two farriera Wilson's examination of the body; and until that time, he, the coroner, was ignorant of the opinion formed by Mr. Wilson from such examination; and, further, that he, the deponent, gave orders for the exhumation of the body, with directions that the regimental surgeons should be excluded from that examination; that he, the deponent, selected Mr. Wilson to make such examination, because he knew him intimately as a surgeon of great acquirements, and specially qualified, from his having devoted much time to the investigation of diseases of the skin-["When," said Mr. Cockburn, "it was the spine, not the skin, that was to be inquired into"]-and that he considered him a man of ability and integrity. He then says that he has occasionally, since he has been coroner, issued |