ts of a
few short interviews they will often be seen differently by different
observers.

In scarcely any of its parts does toxicology belong to this class
of subjects--certainly not at all in so far as it deals with mineral
poisons. To a great extent it is a fixed science--a science whose
boundaries may be widened, whose processes may be rendered more
delicate, but whose principles are in great measure settled for ever.
Not in the imperfections of the science, but in the habits of the
American medical profession and in the methods of our criminal
procedures, lies the origin of the evils complained of.

Some of the causes of the present difficulties are readily to be seen.
One is the common ignorance of legal or forensic medicine among the
members of the profession. In none of our medical colleges is legal
medicine taught as a part of the regular course or as an essential
branch of study. Consequently, when the student graduates he has only
heard a few passing allusions to the subject from professors of other
branches. Unfortunately, this is more or less true of many other
medical subjects of importance: helped out, however, by his mother
wit, and impelled by necessity, the imperfectly-educated graduate
after a time becomes very generally a skillful practitioner. During
the period of growth his daily needs govern the direction of his
studies, which are therefore more or less exclusively confined to the
so-called practical branches. Forensic medicine is not one of these,
poison cases are comparatively rare, and to be called upon to give a
definite opinion upon such matters before a legal tribunal happens
not once in the lifetime of most medical men. Consequently, to a great
part of the American medical profession legal medicine is a veritable
_terra incognita_.

Moreover, the whole drift of modern medicine is toward a division
of labor, and forensic medicine is more widely separated from the
ordinary specialties of the science than these are from one another.
In a case of delicate eye-surgery who would value the opinion of a
man whose attention had been devoted mainly to thoracic diseases? What
specialist of the latter character would even offer an opinion? Yet
physicians who acknowledge that they have paid no especial attention
to toxicology do not hesitate to give the most positive opinions upon
the most delicate questions of that science. Men who would, as in
honor bound, ask for a consultation in any case of seri