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Reforms Suggested in the Mode of [January, 
know nothing at all about Chemistry and Medicine ; and it 
would be difficult, in most cases, to know where the chemical 
evidence ends and the medical begins, and how much im- 
portance is to be attached to the one branch of the evidence 
as compared with the other ; and this is due, to no small 
extent, from the way the analyst generally mixes up and 
jumbles the two together. 
Moreover, I contend that the analyst is not competent to 
give medical opinions, even if he has taken a medical degree. 
A medical man who confines himself to Surgery considers 
himself unfitted to adt as a physician, and a physician con- 
siders himself unfitted to adt as a surgeon, yet the surgeon 
and the physician are in pradtice ; whereas the analyst, 
although he may have taken a medical degree, will not, if 
he pradtises Chemistry, pradtise as a medical man, — pro- 
bably he has never seen any pradtice since taking his degree : 
he is therefore, I contend, incompetent to form and give 
medical opinions from his own knowledge and experience ; 
they can only be the opinions he has obtained from books. 
I will cite two examples as confirmatory of what I have 
stated. The late Professor of Chemistry in King’s College, 
London (Wm. Allen Miller, M.D.), on being examined 
before a Parliamentary Committee on the water question, 
was asked what would be the effedt on persons drinking 
water containing sulphate of lime ? He replied that he was 
not competent to give an opinion on that subjedt. “ Are 
you not a medical man ?” inquired the Committee. “ Yes,” 
he said, “ I have taken the degree of Dodtor of Medicine, 
but I have never practised ; I have therefore no experience 
to guide me in forming an opinion on the subjedt.” In the 
Balham case the cousin (a surgeon) of the deceased man 
was asked in his examination some medical questions ; he 
replied he was not able to answer them or to offer an 
opinion, as he was a surgeon and not a physician. 
I may state that when, some years ago, I was offered by 
the Irish Government, through one of their legal advisers, 
the office of analyst in poison cases for a part of Ireland, I 
had to decline it from conscientious motives, although the 
fees I would have obtained would have added considerably 
to my income. I stated to the gentleman who offered me it 
that the evidence I would give would not conform with the 
evidence usually given in such cases, and therefore they 
might not approve of it, as I would confine myself entirely 
to the chemical part of the subjedt. I would not touch on 
the medical part in the slightest degree. Another reason 
was, I could not in my then position have a laboratory set 
