THE ROYAL ARMY MEDICAL CORPS MEMORIAL FUND.

1560 and that patient cannot be taken to pieces for demonstration of his plight to a jury. It has been suggested that medical men should sit as assessors in lay tribunals to which medical questions are submitted, and the medical referees appointed under the

blame in that their views did not coincide. That medical men should publicly differ among themselves is a matter of regret to no one more than to members of the medical profession, but whether such differences of opinion should impart any blame to them, or whether more or less public censure should be levelled at them without inquiry or consideration of the causes of difference is another matter. The

conflicting

nature of

law is

frequent subject

courts of

expert evidence given in of

and private comment, but it is difficult to see how conflicts of expert evidence can cease to exist so long as questions which must remain essentially matters of opinion only are discussed in courts of law with issues of momentous importance to the parties dependent on them. Expert evidence is that of those whose special experience qualifies them to give it upon questions as to which evidence of fact cannot be a

given

inquiry

is not

one

the facts

The contradictions of of which can be pro-;ed as such. in occur all of cases in which it evidence classes expert has to be given. They are to be observed when engineers

Compensation

experiment

in this direction.

Acts may be regarded as an Such a system would have its

and also, perhaps, its drawbacks. We observe ORMSBY, in the address to which we have called

advantages that Mr.

public

because the matter under

Workmen’s

sent to

following resolution by the Council Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland was recently each of the judges of the Supreme Court of Judica-

ture in

Ireland, but that,

attention, of the

stated that the

been received

’,

so

far

as

he

knew,

no answer

had

:-

That the President and Council of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, having regard to the necessarily technical nature of the medical evidence, are of opinion that in cases of actions for damages for personal injuries, the court itself should obtain the assistance of a medical expert other than those employed by the parties to the suit.

We should much like to hear the view of the Irish endeavour to point out and to estimate the existence and judges on the matter. As for Mr. Justice LAWRANCE’s value of novelties in an invention, or where handwriting attitude towards the medical witnesses in WATERS v. the experts seek to identify or to distinguish the penmanship Brighton Gas Company, though to do so savours of of

forger,

well jury in

where medical

called damages for

lordship that every year assessing litigants owing to their pounds In and in all such cases, many others, counsel advising appeals to higher courts upon points which personal injuries. the contradictions are made the subject of reproach levelled are ultimately decided against them. Again, the opinions at the professions of those who have honestly differed in of Lords Justices of Appeal are often over-ruled by the their opinions, the witnesses are liable to every kind of House of Lords at the expense of suitors to whom these suggestion of corruption and wilful error being made against differences of opinion among distinguished legal experts them by adverse and irresponsible advocates, and judges, involve the loss of large sums of money. The positions juries, and arbitrators, not themselves experts, have to of the two professions are not precisely similar but arrive at their conclusions in spite of the contradictions as both serve to illustrate our contention that there aie best they may. It is at the same time clear that if opinions matters upon which scientific men, whether their science must be given upon matters not ascertainable as facts, such be medicine or law, may honestly differ, and that their opinions are not likely to coincide. It is only a matter of differences are not to be treated as if they involved garbling regret that evidence of this kind should so often be of facts. We are not aware that when questions have been required from medical men in circumstances which make it taken to the House of Lords costs in respect of counsel’s To go into the fees are disallowed to mark their lordships’ views upon the difficult for them to refuse to give it. witness box subjects the medical witness in many cases to differences of legal opinion that have been ventilated before a disagreeable experience ; he is liable to have very serious them. Our contention is that one learned and honourable imputations of corruption and error made against him and profession deserves courteous treatment at the hands of against his profession, the members of which of all others another. are desirous of ascertaining and elucidating the truth. The differences in opinions expressed by medical men may arise in assigning symptoms of illness or injury to a given cause or dissociating them from it, or in estimating the probable future duration of these symptoms or of others Ne quid nimis." ikely to ensue, and in a variety of other ways, but there is a particular hardship which affects members THE ROYAL ARMY MEDICAL CORPS MEMORIAL The engineer and the of the medical profession alone. FUND. a

to aid

the

as

as

a

men

claim for

are

tu quoque,

we

thousands of

must

remind are

his

lost to

Annotations. "

expert can

in

handwriting, whom we pieces the machine, document, and examine

take to

have used or

as

examples,

the words and letters

component parts in the light of their knowledge and experience. The medical of the

has in many cases to of invisible conditions by man

judge

the

of the presence

symptoms

not

patent

or

absence

to the eye

described by a deeply-interested witness-the party himself. He has to risk his professional reputation upon opinions that he can only arrive at after first forming an estimate as to the veracity of the patient submitted to him, but

SOME months before the termination of hostilities in South Africa it was decided that a memorial should be erected to all ranks of the Royal Army Medical Corps who fell in the South African campaign. With this object, after consultation with the Director-General of the Army Medical Service, a provisional committee was formed in South Africa to consider the question generally, and the recommendations of this committee were forwarded by the Director-General to the. principal medical officers of all districts with a request that they’would arrange for the collection of subscriptions which Messrs. Holt and Co. had

1561 A consented to receive. On Oct. 8th last a general meet- the year were Rudolph Virchow and Alfred Cornu. ing of the subscribers to the fund so established was held remarkable fact in connexion with these losses is that at 18, Victoria-street, London, S.W., Sir W. Taylor, K.C.B., many of the deceased savants were over 75 years of age, being in the chair. A committee was elected, consisting of three of them being over 80 years of age and one was The total years represented by the the following officers, all of whom had served in South 90 years of age. Africa: President, Sir W. D. Wilson, K. C. M. G., late principal lives of these eminent men is 842, thus giving an medical officer of the South African Field Force, Colonel average each of nearly 80 years. Longevity would W. L. Gubbins, M.V.O., Lieutenant Colonel W. Babtie, V.C., appear to be a characteristic of men of :science, C.M.G., Major R. J. S. Simpson, C.M.G., Major F. J. and amongst the eminent Fellows of the Royal Society Greig, Captain A. Pearse, and Lieutenant E. B. Knox. still enjoying health and life are quite a number whose Major Simpson was appointed honorary secretary. It was years considerably exceed three score and ten. The past decided that each district should elect one warrant or non - year has seen the formation of a new society, which commissioned officer and one man to represent the wishes of has recently received a Royal Charter, for the organisaand promotion of those branches of learning those ranks on the committee. The business of the meeting tion consisted chiefly in defining the duties of the committee, to which in foreign academies were usually included in The President, in which were handed over all questions regarding the obtain- the philosophico-historical section. ing of subscriptions, the design, execution, and erection of the name of the Royal Society, gave a hearty welcome the memorial, and its site, the meeting merely expressing the to " The British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, opinion that it should be an outdoor memorial. The first Philosophical, and Philological Studies " and he expressed committee meeting was held at 18, Victoria-street on the conviction that they would work together in comNov. 21st, when, owing to the enforced absence of plete harmony, remembering that each society retained Sir W. Wilson, Colonel Gubbins presided. Nine of the its complete independence and was in no way subser-

kindly

representatives from districts attended in person and vient to the State. At the conclusion of his address the majority of the remainder sent written statements Sir William Huggins presented the medals. The Copley of their views on the business of the meeting. Sum- medal was awarded to Lord Lister, in recognition of marising the proceedings of both meetings the present the value of his physiological and pathological researches. position is as follows. 1. Subscriptions will be gladly The Rumford medal was awarded to the Hon. Charles received from all ranks of the Royal Army Medical Corps Algernon Parsons, the inventor of the steam turbine. Prowhether the subscriber served in South Africa or not. 2. The term " Royal Army Medical Corps " here will include all Royal Army Medical Corps Militia and .Volunteers as well as specially enlisted men who served in the Royal Army Medical Corps on attestation in South Africa. 3. The site of the memorial will be at Aldershot ; the exact place available will have to be decided by the general officer commanding there. 4. The memorial will take the form of an obelisk, but the exact design cannot be determined till the total amount of subscription is known and also the exact site which will be granted at Aldershot. The design it-elf will be carried out by an architect. 5. It was decided that no permanent record of the names of the subscribers need be printed, but that it shall be distinctly shown on the The total memorial by whose subscriptions it was erected. But subscripamount received up to the present is £ 650. tions have not been received from all units which served in South Africa, nor have they been received from more than about 50 per cent, of the officers who served there. As it is important that the committee should know as early as possible what amount it will have to dispose of it is hoped that all those who intend to subscribe will do so at some early date. Messrs. Holt & Co., 3, Whitehall-place, London, S.W., will be pleased to receive all subscriptions, which should be distinctly marked for the ’’ Special Fund for The limit of the subscription has R.A.M.C. Memorial."" been fixed at one day’s pay. THE

ANNIVERSARY OF THE

ROYAL SOCIETY.

THE anniversary meeting of the Royal Society was held Dec. lst, the day following St. Andrew’s Day. The society has sustained, as Sir William Huggins pointed out in his presidential address, the loss of many distinguished Fellows during the past year. No less than nine Fellows and two foreign members have been removed by death. The list contains the names of such distinguished men as Sir Joseph Gilbert, Sir Frederick Abel, Dr. John H. Gladstone, Sir Richard Temple, Dr. Maxwell Simpson, Mr, William Henry Barlow, the Marquis of Dufferin and Ava, Mr. George F. Wilson, and just lately Sir William C. Roberts-Austen, the chemist to the Mint, who died on Nov. 22nd. The foreign members who died during

on

fessor Horace Lamb received a medal for his researches in mathematical physics and Professor Schafer received a similar medal for his researches on the structure and functions of the central nervous system-a study directed more particularly to the motor and sensory functions of the cortex of the brain. The Davy medal was awarded to Professor Svante Arrhenius of Stockholm, famous for his work upon the theory of dissociation and its application to the explanation of chemical changes. Mr. Francis Galton received the Darwin medal in recognition of his valuable writings on evolutionary studies. The Hughes medal was awarded to Professor J. J. Thompson, whose remarkable work on the phenomena of electric discharge through rarefied is well known. gases Lastly, Dr Sydney Monckton Copeman received the Buchanan medal, a medal awarded every five years for distinguished services in public health. His work on the bacteriology and comparative pathology of vaccination deservedly gained for him this award. The annual dinner was held in the Whitehall Rooms, Hotel Métropole, when the President again referred to the national character of independence which the society enjoyed, although it frequently served as an acknowledged court of reference at the disposal of the Government. Amongst the useful committees which had executed important work were the Eclipse Committee, the Coral Reef Committee, the Tsetse Committee, and the Malaria Committee. To the toast of " The Medalists " Lord Lister responded, referring briefly to the work of those who had received medals. The company included a large number of well-known scientific men and some representatives of the diplomatic services. -

COAL-GAS

POISONING.

elsewhere a rgsum6 of an interesting trial in action for damages was brought against the Brighton Gas Company for alleged neglect in fitting up a gas stove. The question to be decided was whether the illness which plaintiffs had sustained was due to the special circumstances of the escape of gas from a defectively fitted stove. The judge decided that the plaintiffs had been poisoned and that they were therefore entitled to damages. The responsibility of fixing the stove is thus put upon the WE which

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