Papers Read Before the Medico-Legal Society of New York from Its Organization |
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Page 106 - Those obligations are the more deep and enduring, because there is no tribunal other than his own conscience to adjudge penalties for carelessness or neglect. Physicians should, therefore, minister to the sick with due impressions of the importance of their office ; reflecting that the ease, the health...
Page 238 - ... to establish a defense on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing ; or, if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong.
Page 136 - On the contrary, although he may be laboring under partial insanity, if he still understands the nature and character of his act, and its consequences; if he has a knowledge that it is wrong and criminal, and a mental power sufficient to apply that knowledge to his own case, and to know that, if he does the act, he will do wrong and receive punishment; such partial insanity is not sufficient to exempt him from responsibility for criminal acts.
Page 137 - Can a medical man, conversant with the disease of insanity, who never saw the prisoner previously to the trial, but who was present during the whole trial and the examination of all the witnesses, be asked his opinion as to the state of the prisoner's mind at the time of the commission of the alleged crime ? or his opinion whether the prisoner was conscious at the time of doing the act, that he was acting contrary to law, or whether he was laboring under any and what delusion at the time?
Page 137 - In answer thereto, we state to your lordships, that we think the medical man, under the circumstances supposed, cannot in strictness be asked his opinion in the terms above stated, because each of those questions involves the determination of the truth of the facts deposed to, which it is for the jury to decide ; and the questions are not mere questions upon a matter of science, in which case such evidence is admissible. But, where the facts are admitted, or not disputed, and the question becomes...
Page 238 - The jury ought to be told, in all cases, that every man is presumed to be sane, and to possess a sufficient degree of reason to be responsible for his crimes, until the contrary is proved...
Page 29 - I have compared the preceding with the original law on file in this office, and do hereby certify that the same is a correct transcript therefrom, and of the whole of said original law. ' Given under my hand and the seal of office of the Secretary of State, at the city of Albany, this third day of May, in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-five.
Page 135 - THE JOURNAL OF MENTAL SCIENCE. Published by authority of the Association of Medical Officers of Asylums and Hospitals for the Insane.
Page 22 - Whosoever shall unlawfully supply or procure any Poison or other Noxious Thing, or any Instrument or Thing whatsoever, knowing that the same is intended to be unlawfully used or employed with Intent to procure the Miscarriage of any Woman, whether she be or be not with Child, shall be guilty of a Misdemeanour...
Page 140 - If the accused was conscious that the act was one which he ought not to do. and if that act was at the same time contrary to the law of the land, he is punishable: and the usual course therefore has been to leave the question to the jury whether the party accused had a sufficient degree of reason to know that he was doing an act that was wrong, and this course, we think, is correct, accompanied with such observations and explanations as the circumstances of each particular case may require.