CORONERS’ COURTS.

Evening Star, Issue 6262, 11 April 1883, Page 4

CORONERS’ COURTS.

- ; TO yHB EDITOR Bib,— -Mr; Denniafcon asjks on what principle should coroners be selected from the medical pcofessioiii ? ,1, would answer that a medical coroner is'better qualified than any other to elicit tiie cause of death in cases under inquiry. Now, the actual cause of death is by no means so plain. to r the non - medical mind as Sir have the public believe. In one inquest at Home, which came under the cognisance of the writer, the cause of death .appeared so plain to the ooroner, who was a barrister of high standing, that he directed the jury, without medical evidence, to bring in a verdict of “Death from natural causes.” The writer, who had attended the deceased in hospital, having reason to differ from the. verdict, made a pout mortem, examination, and found that there Was! an extensive fracture of the skull, which might have been the result of violence. In another case the same legal coroner directed the jury to bring in a verdict of “ Death from excessive drinking,” also without medical evidence, ffeatiy to the distress of the relatives and f riecoeef the deceased. The writer found by post mortem examination that the deceased bad died'.from 1 serous apoplexy, which might have been.' dud to vary different causes. Snob grave errons of judgment could hardly occur to « medical coroner.-

Dr Hardwick®, Coroner for Central Middlesex, “who oWed his election to the strong public feeling .that tjhe Coroner to succeed Wakley and L»nkeater,(alao medical men) should be a medical man, mentions several classes of deaths which especially demand vigilance in a coroner —those of infants, those from alcoholic poisoning ('pure.suicides’ as he calls them), those from destitution and chronic pauperism (only another starvation),, many deaths from Infectious diseases negligently contracted and negligently spread,, deaths of persons unattended by medical men, 'and nnoertifloated cases.”--* lancet,’ May 3,1878. The 4 Lancet ’ adds: 44 A great amount of trouble accrues to tiie coroner in the shape of Informal inquiries which obviate inquests.” I will go as far as to say ; that no one without medical teaming is competent to decide in such cases wheiTan inquest is necessary, or when a post-mortem examination is necessary, or to frame the questions otr medical points to the medical nr otherwitnesses so aistoget at the medical facts. Indeed the amount of medical knowledge re2 nixed by ,a legal coroner infinitely outweighs tie amount o! legal knowledge necessary to a medical coroner for the taking and summing up of evidence. ' “A capacity for eliciting and weighing evidence ” is most essential to success In medioinet and therefore a gentleman selected because of his medical reputation may reasonably be expected.to be a successful coroner, I do not epuqr on tbe question of altering the mode of procedure in Inquests, which is doubtless susceptible of improvement; but under any system I maintain that the coroner should be*a medical man,—l am, etc., MSDIOUS, Dunedin, April 10.