The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-06-30
EXPERT EVIDENCE.

lawyers 90 business is Hkely 10 contain q
''notcd criminal lawyer" the dernier resort of
all genteel thieves, seducers, and criminal
bring them within the scope of the law
Among the doctors will be found some super
fetal and loud mouthed blatherskite compe-
tent to cover the entire field of medical juris-
prudence and expert testimony. Between
these two on one side, and the jury and the
prisoner at the bar on the other, a travesty is
not infrequently made of law and justice.
An eminent chemist Of New York city
swears that an insurance contract is bogus;
that the body Of the letter has been scraped
off and the contract written over the INCREASED
signature. The case is tried in Western city,
and it is shown by simple microscopic exam
ination that the document is genuine. This
is matter of money, but not infrequently
life is at stake.
An extract from the San Francisco Call is
going the rounds of the papers which may at
least expose the thorough ignorance Of one of
the professional scientific experts whose
evidence may condemn man to the scaffold:
''The reports record the wonderful feats of
Dr. Piper, of Chicago, with his microscope in
trial for murder in his native city In this
case DR.. Piper claimed to have examined two
blood stains, one on pillow and tho other on
a carpet, and to have demonstrated that one
stain was the blood of woman, and the other
30 h., h.. No. h. Is
tunately for the interest of truth, DR.. Piper
gives his methods. He says that he cut a
portion of the pillow with the stain upon it,
and placed it under the microscope using
power of 1000 diameters This is exactly
what person entirely ignorant of the use of
the instrument would do, and with such a
power would not see anything except black
void. To see blood corpuscles with power OF
1000 diameters on fabric round, bright
and clear is simply physical impossibility.
The only possible method is to moisten the
stain and thus dissolve the blood, which has
to be transferred to glass slide in the usual
way and then examined as a transparent OBJ
ject. Blood corpuscles are, however, very
elastic, and expand if the moistening fluid is
of less specific gravity than the blood serum.
If water is used they expand to such degree
as to become globular, when they appear
round, bright and clear 1t is, therefore,
under many difficulties that corpuscles from
blood stains are examined under the micro
scope, for it is next to impossible to preserve
their original characteristics and one is for
tunate it, by using fluid of proper density
to maintain their original size, their identity
as human blood corpuscles can be demon
strated."
DIR. Piper says the microscope can deter
mine precisely whether specimen of blood is
from q human subject or not This
matter was sifted to the bottom in
1874 by DR.. J. J. Woodward, of the Army
Medical Museum, who came to the following
conclusion accepted and demonstrated by
numerous eminent chemists and microscop-
lists:
eff the microscopic summoned as a scien-
thc expert to examine a suspected blood stain
should succeed in making out the corpuscles
in such way as to enable him to recognize
them to be circular disks, and should measure
them, and should then find their diameter
comes within the limits possible for human
blood, his duty in the present state of our
knowledge is clear. He must, Of course pre-
sent the facts as actually observed, but it is
not justifable for hinks tasstop, tlrsTe. He
must make it clearly understood by both
judge and jury that blood from the dog and
several other animals give stains possessing
the same properties and that neither by the
microscope, nor by any other means yet known
to science can the expert determine that a
given stain is composed of human blood, and
could not have been derived from any other
source. This course is imperatively de-
manded of him by common honesty, without
which scientific experts may become more
dangerous to society than the very criminals
they are called upon to convict"
And DR. Wormley, in his "Micro Chemistry
of Poisons, just published, says:
"Hence, while the microscope may enable
us to. determine with great certainty that u
given specimen of blood is not that of GER
tain animal, and that it may be human, in no
instance can it warrant us in affirming that
the blood is beyond doubt human or indicate
from what particular species Of animal it was
derived"
And yet DR.. Piper claims to have secured a
death sentence against man on his expert
evidence, and contrary to and in the very
face of these assured facts. 1t would be in
teresting to know how many convictions or
clearances DIR. Piper has obtained during the
many years he has been engaged in expert"
testimony. This is the kind of "experr7 tes
timony that has brought the labor of honest
chemists and microscopists into the scorn Of
the general public
s@n@m~-sxs.wz..EEn.
THE Massachusetts, Legislature has passed