MEDICAL EVIDENCE.

522 were, or of what the purposes of mankind and the conditionss the sanctity of his oath. Dr. Winslow goes so far as to supof its progress at the present time were, they would give thatt pose the possibility of an avowed murderer placing a document knowledge; and those who wish to improve medical educationa in the hands of a scientific witness "confidentially,and thus must, to his mind, throw themselves into that object ; theyy securing himself from any voluntary mention of it by the witmust compel those who give us primary education to makee ness. Is Dr. Winslow’s practice really in accordance with this physical science a very large constituent portion of that edu-,- theory ? A medical witness who could suppress truth may be fairly open to the suspicion of suggesting falsehood. The cation. It was the duty of every man to lift up his voice againstt avowal of the principle of reservation of truth must render the the scandalous perversion of human time and human abilityy assertions of such a witness, his written statements, and even under the system of gerund-grinding which now prevailed att his evidence upon oath, utterly valueless. I can only hope schools. And, for the one particular purpose of medical train- that Dr. Winslow does not mean all he says ; but his letters ing, it was the duty of every one of us who had that cause att are published in your columns, and I quote them with scrupuheart to endeavour to exercise such an influence that thea lous exactness. medical teacher shall not have to commence upon a meree I am, Sir, yours &c., HARRINGTON TUKE. tabula rasa, but that the young men who come up for medical Albemarle-street, May 8th, 1866. education shall have been accustomed to acquaint themselves Here this must terminate.-ED. L. * controversy with chemical formulae and chemical reactions ; shall have learnt the great distinguishing features of the different forms of life, and the broad facts of physiology, the elementary outSYPHILITIC INOCULATION IN 1865. lines of which ’might, he spoke from experience, be taught To the Editor of THE LANCET. the How much easier well to of ten old. perfectly years boys task would then be, not only for the learner, but for the letter SiB,—The relating to Mr. H. Lee’s lectures on Syphi. teacher; and how vastly greater would be the stride made by lization which you did me the honour to publish in THE every man towards that great goal already indicated, the LANCET of April 28th, has been commented upon by Mr. Lee, establishment of a scientific medicine. in your impression of May 5th, in a manner which shows that he has entirely misapprehended the purport of my remarks, and which is, for the most part, quite irrelevant to the issue. I am induced, therefore, again to claim your indulgence. Mr. Lee " strongly deprecates any attempt to shift the argu. ment from the facts of the case to a consideration of personal "Audi alteram partem." respect for Dr. Boeck." The deprecation is unnecessary, for there is not a single word in my letter which can warrant such a construction. My observations related solely to the facts; I MEDICAL EVIDENCE. If the arguments never meddled with the a?’gument at all. (LETTER FROM DR. TUKE.) have been shifted from the facts, certainly I have had no hand, in the shifting. To the Editor of THE LANCET. Mr. Lee says, and I entirely agree with him, that "Dr. SiR,-It is with much pain that I find myself constrained to Boeck is far too liberal-minded to wish any cases treated by him to become the exclusive property of any one individual, or reply to Dr. Winslow’s last letter. Dr. Winslow denies the general truth of my statement, that to be interpreted exclusively by any particular school." ’But he suppressed in the Townley case all mention of a document, what Dr. Boeck would, I presume, wish-what both he and which would have been very material evidence against the the profession have a right to expect, and what is essential to the proper consideration of the question-is, that when public prisoner in whose interest he appeared. He does not deny that attention is called to these cases, the facts relating to them he had seen and read such a document, and as his having done should be fully and fairly stated; and it was because they were not, in my opinion, fully and fairly stated that I ventured so is consistent with his statement to me, it appears that such to trouble you with my remarks. a document really did exist. It is certain that he did not allude Mr. Lee’s statement respecting his inoculations on the two to it in his evidence at the trial; therefore he did suppress it, patients alleged to have obtained immunity was calculated to as I have said, and his reiterated denials of such suppression is mislead, because it contained no account of the results of the inoculations afterwards made by myself on these same patients, simply a waste of words. Dr. Winslow next "distinctly and emphatically" denies that though I informed him at the time of what had occurred. Mr. any conversation ever took place between himself, Dr. Sey- Lee may consider these subsequent inoculations as immaterial, or he may perhaps think that no inoculations are of any value mour, and me, in relation to this very document, and untruly and unfairly taunts me with adducing the testimony of a " dead" unless they are performed by himself. I, however, consider witness. My first letter was written on the 8th of April, when them very material indeed in determining the question of immy friend, Dr. Seymour, was still living, and but for his unex- munity, as, I imagine, will most impartial persons, and I pected death, Dr. Winslow would not have ventured to call my object to their being thrust aside because they may not happen statement a "myth" or a "notion," and even now may not to suit the argument. I wrote, therefore, to supply the omitted have done so with the impunity he expects. I send a copy of this facts, in order that those who are interested in the question letter to every member of the bar at that time upon the Midland might have proper data on which to form their own conclusions. I certainly did think, and I think still, that if Mr. Lee Circuit, in the hope that the barrister who was our companion in the railway carriage will take the trouble to corroborate my wished to comment upon these cases, it would have been better assertion, that, to the astonishment of us all, Dr. Winslow if he had obtained authentic particulars from me; chiefly bediscussed and described the document he now positively de- cause I happened to have had more to do with them than any clares he never mentioned, and the very existence of which he one else, and was, therefore, more competent to furnish him insultingly ascribes to my " marvellous faculty of invention with correct information, but also because it appeared to me and my exuberant fancy." to be, in many respects, a very inconvenient and certainly a I should here end this most unpleasant discussion, but there very unusual proceeding for one surgeon to comment upon is a professional question of grave importance involved in cases under treatment by another on mere hearsay evidence. it which I cannot allow Dr. Winslow to evade under trite Mr. Lee, to my astonishment, " t7iiiiks otherwise." He cannot, quotations and lamentable personalities. Dr. Winslow dis- of course, mean to infer that I am not a credible witness on tinctly affirms that, in his opinion, it would not be the duty of matters of fact with which I am fully acquainted, though the a medical witness for the defence " voluntarily to refer to a remark would certainly bear that interpretation, and I might, document that would secure the hanging" of a murderer. perhaps, have found it difficult to construe it otherwise but for Now I ask, can it be the duty of a medical witness to suppress what follows, from which it appears that Mr. Lee arrives at material evidence either for or against a prisoner ?Y his facts by a rather peculiar process. He prefers, it seems, to Dr. Winslow has been much engaged in criminal trials. obtain them, not from the quarter presumably the best inCan it be possible that in Townley’s, in Atkinson’s, or in other formed, but from various other sources, informed, of course, cases, he could have kept back in the witness-box material with various degrees of accuracy, and from the aggregate indocumentary evidence ?:’ He was solemnly sworn to tell the formation so collected the facts are made up. Now I can"truth and the whole truth ;" if he did less, he disregarded understand the advantage of such a process when applied to -

Correspondence.