Review: Glaister's Medical Jurisprudence and Toxicology
| Published date | 01 July 1938 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X3801100315 |
| Date | 01 July 1938 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEWS
Mr.
Maxwell Fyfe gives his view that the study of this book will be of
value"
to the practising lawyer in his enquiries into a difficult subject.
The
police officeof every rank will find an invaluable assistance both on practical
points and on a theoretical understanding of his position in the community.
Politicians and social students will be able to give a new reality to speeches
or writings on liberty and rid themselves of hazy platitudes which have
bored so many audiences in the past."
It
seems that he is right.
GLAISTER'S
MEDICAL
JURISPRUDENCE
AND
TOXICOLOGY.
Sixth edition. Edited by
JOHN
GLAISTER,
M.D.
(Edinburgh:
E. &S.
Livingstone.) 25s. net.
THIS useful handbook, primarily intended for the student-reader,
but
an
excellent work of reference for police officers, has been revised throughout.
,Considerable portions of the
subject-matter"
(we quote from the Editor's
Preface) " have been recast in order to include, among others, such subjects
as dermal prints, palmar prints, the identification of maggots, the Ruxton
case, with special relation to identification of mutilated and dismembered
remains, blood-grouping, the grouping of seminal fluid, the identification
of fibres, the technique of sectioning hairs, the use of filtered ultra-violet
light, the Pharmacy and Poisons Act, and war gases. Changes have been
made in the toxological section, and some fifty new illustrations . . . have
been substituted."
The
chapter on the identification of corpses has obviously been much
influenced by the Ruxton case, of which the salient features are given. So
far as we are aware this was the first case in which the life cycles of various
species of ' blowflies' were studied in order to assist in determining (by the
age of the maggots) the date on which the crime was probably committed.
There is a curious slip on p.
401
(lines 22-25) where the syntax and
punctuation make a
"vulgar
error"
read as
"a
fact beyond dispute."
This and the slipshod sentence which follows it need recasting. But there
are remarkably few slips, and a word of praise is due to the printer for his
accuracy.
It
may be worth while mentioning, for correction in a subsequent
edition, that
'per'
takes the accusative case (p. 424, line 24), and while
Primula obconica (p. 713) is notorious for its urticating properties, we never
heard of harm being done to the most sensitive skin by the handling of
P.
sinensis.
Altogether a useful book, well arranged, well indexed, and well
produced.
383
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