VETERINARY JURISPRUDENCE. 
115 
gery shall be allowed or compelled to disclose any information 
which he may have acquired in attending auy patient in his pro¬ 
fessional character and which information was necessary to enable 
him to prescribe for such patient as a physician, or to do any act 
for him as a surgeon.” 
Now that I have touched upon and endeavored to elucidate 
somewhat the character of evidence, it will be next in order to 
consider the subject of preparation for the witness box and the 
proper manner of giving evidence. The suggestions I am about 
to give you regarding the manner of giving evidence are offered 
with but one object—not to teach you to be skillful partisans nor 
defiant witnesses, but simply for this: that your evidence may 
be of such a nature, both as regards its arrangement and scope, 
that justice may be assisted by a clear and orderly statement of 
truth and the whole truth, and not perplexed by a disorderly 
combination of chaff and wheat, a hopeless entanglement of ma¬ 
terial and immaterial statements. 
First, then, it is your duty to make yourself fully acquainted 
with and master of all the facts bearing on that part of the case 
upon which you may be called to give evidence. Your knowl¬ 
edge should be as far complete as possible. As an illustration of 
what I mean : no medical man is justified in venturing to give 
evidence on the results of an imperfectly conducted or half per¬ 
formed post-mortem. Because a death was sudden and you find 
on opening the thorax evidence of heart disease, you are not 
justified in neglecting the examination of the brain ; death is 
sudden in some cases of cranial hemorrhage, and apoplexy may 
exist with it, or be caused by poisoning. 
In all cases likely to be matters of judicial inquiry, complete¬ 
ness of work is absolutely essential, for two reasons: the one to 
avoid personal censure, and the other to further the interests of 
justice. Do not think yourself above a careful preparation for 
the witness-box; for the witness has a harder struggle than the 
cross-examiner (for it is easier to ask questions than to answer 
them). Hence by so much let your preparation be the more ac¬ 
tive and complete, and in this preparation arrange all your facts 
methodically and as far as possible chronologically; make your- 
