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persons from the profession of advocate.

Now the laws which took away from women and from blind persons the right to plead, were special laws, exceptional laws, true laws of circumstance. In our humble opinion there is now no more place to invoke against women, the prohibition with which the Roman law smote them because of the act of Caphrania, than there would be to invoke against blind persons the incapacity pronounced against them because of Publi

us.

But-women have yet the right to tell us why, O Sir Civilians, who are looking over the dusty shelves of your libraries, to find old enough texts of the Corpus Juris which are unfavorable to us, why do you not resuscitate a law eminently more respectable, the law Cincia de donis et muneribus, which forbade advocates to receive gifts, recompense or money for their services?—(Claudius, it is true, authorized advocates to take fees.) And since you are in so good a path, you might also exhume and restore a certain law of Leo and Anthemius which prescribed that in order to be received as judge or advocate, one must be imbued with the doctrines of the holy Catholic religion.-(Codex II, 7, Lex 8: Nemo vel in foro magnitudinis tuæ, vel in provinciali judicio, vel apud quemquam judicem accedat ad togatorum consortium, nisi sacrosanctis Catholicæ religionis fuerit imbutus mysteriis.)

Let us no longer trouble ourselves with these Roman laws which, certainly, may have formerly had their importance, and a raison d'etre, but which it is assuredly preferable, at the present day, to leave to repose in the silence of oblivion.

(To be continued.)

Department of Medical Jurisprudence.

EDITED BY EDWARD B. WÊSTON, M. D.

THE MEDICO-LEGAL SOCIETY OF CHICAGO

Held a stated meeting, at the Grand Pacific Hotel, October 6th, 1888, President E. J. Doering, M. D., in the chair.

· The resignation of Dr. Scott Helm, as Secretary, was received and accepted. Dr. Edward B. Weston was elected to fill the vacancy.

A

paper on "The Medico-Legal Aspects of Spinal Injuries,” by Drs. James Burry and E. Wyllys Andrews, was read by Dr. Burry, and discussed by members of the society.

MEDICO-LEGAL ASPECTS

OF SOME INJURIES OF THE SPINAL CORD.

BY

JAMES BURRY, M. D.,

SURGEON C. S. F. & C. RY., CONSULTING SURGEON
ST. JOSEPH'S HOSPITAL OF JOLIET, ILL.

AND

E. W. ANDREWS, M. D.,

PROF. CLINICAL SURGERY CHICAGO MEDICAL COLLEGE,
SURGEON TO MERCY HOSPITAL, CHICAGO.

Within a period of five years, English railway companies have paid in damages in cases of alleged injury to the spinal cord, the enormous sum of £2,200,000 or $11,000;000.

In our own city, the greatest railway center in the world, and in other parts of our country, large sums have been paid as compensatory damages in similar cases.

$300,000 it is said were paid to the sufferers in the Chatsworth accident, and the largest individual damages were paid in settlement of cases of spinal injury.

Specific instances of the enormous sums which have been awarded in this class of obscure injuries are:

CASE OF WATERMAN V. THE CHICAGO & ALTON R. R.-The plaintiff claimed large damages for spinal concussion said to be produced in an accident. Dr. Clark Gapen and other experts testified that injury was the cause of the patient's symptoms, while Drs. Senn and Whiting testifying as experts for the defense, agreed in stating that the patient had locomotor ataxia. A verdict of $23,000 was awarded.

CASE OF HOLLAND V. THE CHICAGO & EASTERN ILLINOIS R, R.-The plaintiff, an employe of another line, was injured in a collision and afterward reported for work, apparently well. He was not given employment. Shortly after this it was claimed that symptoms of spinal concussion developed, and permanent disability followed. Large damages were claimed and the plaintiff was awarded the sum of $23,000.

CASE OF ROZENZWEIG V. THE LAKE SHORE & MICHIGAN SOUTHERN R. R.-The plaintiff having been put off a train at a place not a regular station, was walking across the tracks and either tripped over some object or was knocked down, he did not know which. Spinal injury of an obscure type was alleged and heavy damages awarded. The case after final appeal to the Supreme Court of the State, was settled by the road paying to the plaintiff $48,500 with interest, or in all, over $50,000 compensation.

CASE OF PHILLIPS V. THE LONDON & SOUTHWESTERN RY.The plaintiff, a physician, was disabled about two years by a railway injury to the spinal cord. It was proved that he had possessed a practice worth $40,000 per annum, and a verdict of $80,000 was given. Dr. Steele who has met Dr. Phillips during the past summer informs us that he is, except for a slight lameness, quite restored to health.

In examining the expert medical evidence in the above cases, one cannot but see the overshadowing influence of the theories laid down by Erichsen in his work on "Concussion of the Spine." A careful and comparative examination of these theories of Erichsen with those of later investigators in neuropathological fields may be of interest.

Erichsen teaches that there are two opposite and distinct conditions produced in the spinal cord by injuries. In one there are all the usual and visible effects of traumatism elsewhere—laceration of tissue, hemorrhage into the spinal canal or substance of the cord and inflammation of the cord and membranes. In the other there are no definite structural changes, but only that condition which he describes under the term "anæmia of the cord," and which he himself admits can only be inferred and is not a well proved pathological fact.

Cases of the first class, viz., those in which definite structural changes are produced, always give rise in his opinion to definite symptoms and are easily recognizable pathological states. In his ideas of the gross pathology we find nothing essentially different from the views of the older pathologists. Thus we find him describing the condition produced by myelitis as softening of the cord, notwithstanding the fact that modern investigation has shown that inflammation does not always produce softening, and that the latter may exist without myelitis.-(Gowers.)

Grosser structional lesions are not the conditions, however, which have given rise to conflicts of medical evidence. It is upon Erichsen's description of the second class of cases, viz. those in which there are no visible structural alterations, that the greatest and most numerous claims for compensation have been built up. It is well, therefore, in view of the conflicts of opinion which have arisen, carefully to examine the evidence as to the existence of this second class of cases, described under the term "anæmia of the cord."

Accuracy in the use of scientific terms may properly be demanded in a work which is so often quoted in medico-legal contentions. How much evidence is there then of the existence of any such pathological condition as "anemia of the

cord?" Dana, in his latest writings, asserts "Chronic spinal anæmia can hardly be placed in the category of distinct spinal affections." Gowers, in his work just from the press, embodying the results of original and exhaustive research says, in discussing anæmia and hyperemia of the cord, "The condition of the vessels of the spinal cord after death affords no indication whatever of their state during life. Local variation occurs only in the local hyperemia which attends inflammation and the anæmia which results from pressure; hence the occurrence of variations in the state of the vessels of the cord and the effects that such variations may produce, are matters of inference from symptoms observed during life, symptoms that are themselves open to various interpretations. Where the ground is barren of facts, theory is always luxuriant. Anæmia, or congestion of the cord affords a ready explanation of symptoms, the cause of which is unknown and it is scarcely surprising, therefore, that such an explanation has often been given. Some surprise may, however, reasonably be felt at the absolute confidence and precision of detail with which these states have been invoked as morbid processes, when the opinions expressed rest not upon one tittle of definite evidence. Positive assertions always receive some credence, however unwarranted the assertions may be, and positions incapable of proof are also sometimes incapable of disproof. It would be futile and useless to attempt to refute in detail the various statements that have been made regarding anæmia and hyperæmia of the spinal cord. We know nothing of it as an independent condition; nevertheless, volumes might be filled by the collected descriptions of the varieties and symptoms, descriptions in which the unrestricted play of 'scientific' fancy has elaborated a symptomatology for the separate congestion of every part of the spinal cord.. It is doubtful if any symptoms can be, with confidence, assigned to mechanical congestion."

In the face of these modern views, what weight shall be attached to the opinions on matters of obscure pathology of a writer, who, not himself a specialist in neurology nor possessed of any of the recent methods of investigation, nevertheless lays

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