244 
prompt condemnation is axiomatic, but a 
word is wanted touching upon what may 
be termed the ignorance of the Court. 
“When I take my place upon the witness 
stand,” said a prominent toxicologist once 
to me, “‘ I can never predict in what shape 
I shall be upon leaving it;” a feeling with 
which most of us can, I fancy, sympathize 
pretty keenly. 
Is it that we fear exposure of the weak 
points in our professional armor? Do we 
dread to say in public, ‘I do not know?” 
Hardly that, I take it. We are now pos- 
sessed of so very little of that which one 
day may be known that no true scientist 
hesitates for an instant to plead legitimate 
ignorance. What really troubles us upon 
cross-examination is that the Court does 
not speak our language, a language often 
quite difficult of direct translation ; that it 
is but rarely schooled in the principles of 
our science; and that, in consequence, it 
frequently insists upon categorical answers 
to the most impossible kind of questions. 
The hypothetical questions showered 
upon the expert witness are sometimes 
veritable curiosities, so peculiar are they in 
their monstrosity. Who among us but has 
felt that the layman, who has simply to 
testify to observed facts, has an easy time 
of it, indeed, when compared with him from 
whom there is expected an opinion under 
oath ? 
All scientific men are willing and anxious 
to have their work scrutinized carefully by 
their peers; but to be exposed to the one- 
sided criticism frequently encountered at 
the bar is quite another matter; for it must 
be remembered that, after the adverse 
counsel has opened up what appears to be 
a glaring inconsistency in the testimony, 
the re-direct examination may utterly fail 
to repair the breach, because of a lack of 
familiarity with a technical subject on the 
part of the friendly attorney. 
This leaves the witness in the uneviable 
SCIENCE. 
[N. S. Vou. VI. No. 137. 
position of disagreeing with the general 
drift of his own testimony, while it de- 
prives him of suitable means of insisting 
upon its revision and correction. 
According to the writer’s view, there is 
but one way to escape such dilemma, and 
that is by direct and immediate appeal to 
the Judge, urging that the oath taken 
called for a statement of the whole truth, 
and not the misleading portion already 
elicited. 
To illustrate how serious a matter the 
partial testimony of an expert witness may 
be, and to show also to what extent lawyers 
may go who look only to the winning of 
their causes, permit me to refer to an al- 
ready reported poison case in which I was 
employed by the people. It may be roughly 
outlined as follows: 
Much arsenic and a very little zine were 
found in the stomach. 
The body had not been embalmed, but 
cloths wrung out in an embalming fluid 
containing zinc and arsenic had been spread 
upon the face and chest. 
Medical testimony showed that no fluid 
could have run down the throat. Know- 
ing the relative proportions of zine and 
arsenic in the embalming fluid, the quan- 
tity of arsenic found in the stomach was 
twelve times larger than it should have 
been to have balanced the zine also there 
present, assuming them to have both come 
from the introduction of the said embalm- 
ing fluid by cadaveric imbibition. Other cir- 
cumstantial evidence was greatly against 
the prisoner. 
At the time of my appearing for the 
people, on the occasion of the first trial 
of the case, my direct testimony brought 
out very strongly the fact that a fatal quan- 
tity of arsenic had been found in the stom- 
ach, but no opportunity was given me to 
testify to the presence of the zine found 
there as well, although the fact of its exist- 
ence in the body was known to the prose- 
