Wichita eagle., 1888-06-17
MEDICAL EVIDENCE.
To the Editor of the Daily Eagle.

To The Editor Of the Daily Eagle.
The NJ. D. as rule is not a success
upon the witness stand. In the first
place the jury before whom the majority
OF important cases are tried is made up
OF plain, matter of fact men who desire
to hear statement of the facts In a case
IN as simple language as possible, while
the NJ. ID. is nothing if not profoundly
learned and consequently fails to make
himself understood by those who are ex-
pected to consider and weigh hls evil
dence in making a verdict In the case.
Not long since reported case during
the trial of which twenty-five of these
learned gentlemen occupied the witness
stand, their number including several of
the most distinguished gentlemen of the
medical profession in the state of Indi-
ana. Mr.. Vanarsdall. who had leg
broken while on horse car on North
Main street last fall in the city of Wichita
by being run into by runaway
team, went all the way to indianapolis to
have one of these gentlemen, Prof. East
man, of the medical college of that
place, one Of the brightest men / ever
met, treat him. l do not know in what
other way can make plain the fact that
the NJ. d. is not success on the witness
stand so well as by giving the answer of
the defendent in the case of q question
or two propounded by his counsel, which
is fair illustration or sample OF the
kind and character of testimony given
by medical witnesses generally. Ques-
tion-Doctor, tell the court and jury if
you were called to see the plaintiff dur
ing his recent illness. Answer-Yes, sir.
Question-Now tell the court and Jury
what you found upon reaching the bed
side. Answer found upon examina-
ton that he had obtained compound,
oblique fracture of both the tibia and
fbula at the juncture of the middle and
lower thirds. Ye gods and little fishes.
Mr.. editor, it would have been worth
more to you just then to have looked
into the faces of those twelve jurors
than to be the owner of the
hundred subscriptions of the men who
read your paper constantly for the past
could see the lips of the jurors moving
as they muttered to themselves COM
pound oblique fracture tibia fibula juno
ture OF the middle and lower thirds.
This was more than counsel had ex-
pected, and seeing its effect on the jury
he determined, if possible. to counteract
the same, and proposed the following
question: Now, doctor, tell the court
and jury what treatment, if any, you
gave the plaintiff at that first visit?
passed around his sternum
piece Of some kind of light goods just
below the scapula, and had man to
take hold of that while some one else
took hold of him by the foot. and these
two persons pulled in opposite directions
for the purpose of making extension and
counter extension, whilesI manipulated
the fractured parts until l obtained per-
feet opposition the one with the other.
Counsel seeing that the Jury had not
as yet the faintest idea of what the trou
bic was all about, but were cropping in
darkness as gross as that which existed
before the dawn of creation asked permi5-
sion of the court to allow the witness to
stand aside while they made profert of
the plaintiff broken leg. No sooner had
the poor fellow taken off his boot and
pulled up the leg of his pants than the
Jury at once had a full revelation of the
facts in the case.
The lawyer, who, in prosecu-
tlOl SdiIlSt (SI lStLU KAN Odti
for damages, asked the witness
if certain public highway ran square
across the railroad track or slaunchwise
did not shoot as far below the compre-
hension of the jury as the average medi-
cal witness does about it. But the NJ.
d. makes his greatest and most fatal
mistake upon the witness stand when he
assumes the ability and undertakes
to testify as an expert when the
question Of some ones sanity
is at issue. OF course it does
not require testimony at all to
satisfy Us all that the great majority of
people are OF sound mind, neither does.
it require testimony to prove TO US that
the great majority Of the inmates of our
insane asylums and hospitals are of un-
sound mind. But take the class OF people
known as cranks and who can say where
the eccentricltieS of such people end.
and insanity begins. Certainly medical
men know more about the organism OF
the mind than the rest of us, but neither
they or any one else knows just where
the mental responsibility begins and
ends.
! suppose there is no such thing rs a
perfectly sound mind, any more than
there is such thing as perfectly sound
body. 1t is somewhat remarkable, how
ever. that men who try to escape pun
shment by means OF the insanity dodge
are as rule more than ordinarily
shrewd. A single illustration: Tie first
trial | ever attended in Wichita was that
Of Samuel p. Jenkins. or as he was
known in Wichita, S. S. Jones. Fifteen
years ago this man lived in johnson
Indiana. where | was born and
have always lived. | knew him as well
IS knew any body. And those who
knew him best regarded him as being
not only a man of cool business sense
bat considerable above the average for
All of which claims he
made good by fOrgeries amounting to
thousands of dollars committed upon
he best business men III the county, and
after obtaining the money upon these
forged papers he skipped the country
between TWO days. And when caught
1t his rascality, he, too, attempts the in
sanity dodge, and in every single in
stance Of the kind the doctors are called
n to enlighten the jury upon this most
difficult of all questions; too difficult for
luman ingenuity. w. c. SANDEFUR.
Wichita, Kan, June IA, 1856.