compounds of the vagrants who represent the " Hahnemann whims " are merely the disguised processes of a lingering death. If there are contending factions in his own specialty, our M.D. relapses into dogma tism, and we are apt to find a touch of irony now and then — when he refers to the "advanced scholarship of the profession," and the " demonstrations regarding the de velopment of the microbe." Clotted non sense of this type can never become the adjunct of intelligent exposition — it only leads to bewilder and dazzles to betray. Thus far we have lingered in our expose of the medical expert upon mere deficiencies in good taste and those debonair attitudes of mind that make a man an agreeable com panion — we have regarded nothing that menaces his integrity, or suggests more than ordinary caution in accepting his statements. Unfortunately, however, there is a distinc tively knavish element in his testimony that assumes many disguises if plausibly pre sented and adroitly maintained. And right here are disclosed the most pernicious effects of expert testimony, as, in the very nature of the case, most of his evidence can only be rebutted by the testimony of an equally adroit specialist, neither of whom incurs any particular risk of exposure, even in case of pure fabrication. With this certainty of practical immunity from detection, we have the materials galore for some very ostenta tious and unembarrassed lying that is sure to react somewhere on somebody, and lay the foundation, at least, for serious miscon ceptions that breed mischief to the cause of abstract justice. In his first estate, before the corruptions of the world, the flesh and the devil had de moralized him, the medical expert was a formidable ally of justice, in high repute and with many emoluments before him. But lucre sapped his virtue and made him venal. It is indisputable that the principal abuse engrafted upon modern expert evi dence arises directly from the enormous
fees, so called, that are paid to these pam pered witnesses. The ordinary subpoena is sufficient to bring into any court, the multi millionaires of the country — the very Titans of our industrial enterprises, " the men, in short, that have made America." But to secure the invaluable testimony of the " medi cal expert " resort is had to methods peril ously close to bribery. Where is the dis tinction, in effect, between paying a witness an exorbitant sum of money for his testi mony, under the flimsy guise of a " fee," or openly bribing him to say the same thing? Is it not morally certain that all his sympathies, prejudices and predilections are enlisted upon the side that solicits his pat ronage and pays royally for it? And is he not in a more compromised position, if pos sible, when that fee or payment is contingent upon the success of the party calling him? (See Pollak v. Gregory, 9 Bosw., N. Y. 116.) If not bribery, it has every thing bad about it except bribery. Sensitized minds shrink from cohabiting with so opprobrious a term, but in masculine terminology there is no other substitute or synonym. The foregoing views have been in part suggested by that monumental exhibit of expert imbecility known as the Leutgert case. Of all the ghastly travesties upon common justice and common sense that have disgraced these closing years of the nineteenth century, that trial will probably stand as "primus inter pares." The demo niacal efforts of the experts to contra dict each other and to prove some rival school of anatomy to be the mere nursing mother of a hoard of fakirs resulted, as might have been expected, in the total eclipse of the last faint struggling ray of in telligence that the jury may be supposed to have possessed, and the criminal jurispru dence of this country has been disgraced by a verdict which, broadly rendered says: "He's guilty of murder though you haven't proved the crime "; thus totally ignoring that hoary old doctrine known as " reason
