94 
Editorial. 
I  Am.  Jour.  Pnarm. 
1    February,  1905. 
on  June  29,  1903,  before  Judge  Charles  G.  Garrison.  Samuel  Atkin- 
son, Esq.,  Prosecutor  of  the  County,  for  the  State,  and  Eckard  P. 
Budd,  Esq.,  for  the  defense. 
The  State  alleged  as  motives  for  the  crime  the  collection  of  a  life 
insurance  policy  of  $1, 000,  carried  by  the  husband,  and  the  desire 
of  the  defendant  to  marry  a  young  farmhand,  with  whom  she  had 
maintained  improper  relations  for  a  long  time.  The  latter  was  ad- 
mitted by  the  defense,  and  also  that  death  was  undoubtedly  the 
result  of  strychnine  poisoning,  but  the  defendant  testified  in  her 
own  behalf,  that  the  strychnine  had  been  placed  on  a  desk  in  the 
sitting-room,  and  that  her  husband  must  have  taken  same  while 
alone  in  the  room  during  the  time  that  the  rest  of  the  party  were  at 
dinner.  The  powdered  condition  of  the  medicine  she  explained  by 
the  fact  that  the  envelope  in  which  the  doctor  had  dispensed  the 
tablets  had  fallen  on  the  carriage  floor,  and  had  accidentally  been 
trodden  on  by  her  heel  on  the  way  home. 
The  jury  considered  this  plea  as  establishing  a  reasonable  doubt, 
and  sufficient  to  justify  them  in  rendering  a  verdict  of  acquittal. 
EDITORIAL. 
EXPERT  TESTIMONY. 
With  this  issue  is  completed  the  paper  on  expert  testimony  by 
Dr.  Cohen,  which  was  begun  in  our  January  issue.  Dr.  Cohen  has 
given  no  little  thought  to  this  subject,  having  more  than  a  year  ago 
read  a  paper  on  "The  Judicial  Determination  of  the  Cause  of  Death  " 
before  the  Philadelphia  Medical  Jurisprudence  Society. 
Dr.  Cohen's  presentation  of  the  subject  leaves  no  doubt  as  to  the 
proper  course  to  be  pursued  when  either  the  analyst  or  physician  is 
called  upon  to  testify  in  cases  involving  pharmacological  questions, 
or  indeed  as  to  what  should  be  the  attitude  oi  scientific  experts  in 
general.  In  addition  Dr.  Cohen  suggests  a  method  in  the  employ- 
ment of  experts,  which,  if  followed,  would  raise  expert  testimony 
from  a  plane  where  it  is  too  often  the  subject  of  ridicule  at  the  hands 
of  both  lawyers  and  courts,  to  a  plane  where  it  would  have  the 
stamp  of  truth  and  authority.  Not  only  this,  such  a  method  would 
largely  do  away  with  the  waste  of  time  and  the  great  expense 
involved  in  trials  where  expert  testimony  is  employed. 
