The Green Bag
688
tency, or the loss of some part.
He
law, and in reality it belongs more to
points out that he should be particularly
the confessional than to the courts of justice. Conjugal duty, miracles, fast
careful and alert in his prognosis be cause the ultimate outcome of certain wounds and injuries is very uncertain. He also says that the foremost and
principal quality for the surgeon is that he shall have a pure soul, fearing God
and never reporting a small wound as a large one nor vice versa, because the jurisconsults will be guided in their deci sion by the report.
From this time on works on forensic medicine were published in large num ber. In 1597, Baptista Condronchi, a physician of lmola, published a work
ings and other religious rites, stigmates of sorcerers, monachal claustration, in the medical aspect, find considerable space. However, all these things would
naturally be treated by a physician of Innocent IV, at the time when the canon law held a prominent place.
In France we have the treatises of Gendry, of Angers, of de Blégny, of Lyons, in 1684, and particularly L'Art
des Rapporis, published by Devaux in 1708. The latter remained the vade mecum of the sworn surgeon for an
entitled Methodus testificandi, in qm'bus dam casibus media's ablan's. Here he studies the principal legal questions brought up in cases of disease and
entire century. In 1598, Séverin Pineau, a student of Ambroise Paré, published a book entitled De virginatis notis, which
wounds, sudden death, poisoning, pu The work ends with a few samples of re ports bearing on facts which occurred in
relative to the existence of the hymen, a very much discussed question of the time. In 1611, Vincent Tagareau at tacked the peculiar custom of the Con
his practice and which are modestly
gress in his Discours sur l’lmpuissame.
berty, virginity, pregnancy and labor.
contained the results of his researches
signed: “I, Condronchi, the most humble
And lastly, forensic medicine became
of physicians and philosophers of Imola." In 1602 Fortunatus Fidelis, a physician
enriched at the end of the eighteenth century by a capital discovery, because
of Saint-Philip of Agirone, published a I in 1663 Bartholini studied hydrostatic book entitled De relationibus medicorum pulmonary docimasia, which had already in quibusdam ea omm'a qme in forensibus been foreseen by Galen, and John ac publicis causis medici referre solent Schreyer, a physician of Silesia, applied the method for the first time in juridical plenissime traduntur. The most important and complete matter in a case of infanticide. work of the epoch is without doubt the Without entering into detail I would Qutestiones medico-legales, published in a like to indicate the character of these fragmentary way from 1621 to 1658 by the
Italian
physician,
Paul
Zacchias,
early works on legal medicine. If one simply goes over the index of the
physician of the States of the Church.
treatises by Fidelis and Zacchias, one
The author received great and enthusi astic praise from both physicians and theologians of his time and the author
will at once perceive the ensemble of the
ity of this work was maintained for
application of medicine to canon law, civil law, and criminal law. The follow ing are the subjects which are more par ticularly studied from the medico-legal standpoint: the classification of ages.
nearly
two
centuries.
In
this
book,
which bristles with erudition, is to be
found a quantity of medical questions studied from the viewpoint of the canon
problems which presented themselves to these early medico-legal specialists in the