APPENDIX. 179 



man has no right to fix the amount of his expenses, but 

 must always take the allowance which the law gives him. 

 {Lancet^ 1872, vol. ii., p. 204.) 



Veterinary Witnesses, 



Assuming that the veterinarian has obeyed a subpoena, he 

 will now be required to attend before the Court, and to state, 

 in the face of adverse counsel, the opinions which he has 

 formed from the medical facts of the case, as well as the 

 grounds for these opinions. He will then undergo the 

 ordeal of a public examination. 



Some medico-legal writers have considered it necessary 

 to lay down rules respecting the manner in which a medical 

 witness should give his evidence ; how he is to act on a 

 cross-examination, and in what way he is to recover himself 

 on re-examination. Any advice upon this head appears to 

 me to be quite superfluous, since experience shows that these 

 rules, like those given to prevent drowning, are invariably 

 forgotten at the very moment when a person is most in need 

 of them. A man who goes to testify to the truth to the best 

 of his ability should bear in mind two points : — i. That he 

 should be well prepared on all parts of the subject on which 

 he is about to give evidence. He should act on these occa- 

 sions upon the advice contained in the Latin motto, ne tentes 

 ant ferfice. 2. That his demeanour should be that of an 

 educated man, and suited to the serious occasion on which 

 he appears, even although he may feel himself provoked or 

 irritated by the course of examination adopted. A medical 

 witness must not show a testy disposition in having his 

 professional qualifications, his experience, his means of 

 knowledge, or the grounds for his opinions very closely 

 investigated : he should rather prepare himself to meet with 

 good humour the attempts of an adverse counsel to involve 

 him in contradiction, and show by his answers that he has 

 only a desire to state the truth. Law and custom have long 



