We desire to secure the attention of medical practitioners to the Soluble Elastic Filled Capsules of our recent introduction into this country. These Capsules are so different, both in appearance and quality, from any heretofore placed on the American market, that we especially request that opinion regarding them may not be prejudiced by previous knowledge of a similar class of goods. Our Capsules are manufactured after a method not previously employed in this country, workmen and apparatus having been especially imported from Germany for the purpose. Our claims of superiority for them are based on the following qualities: They are made of the finest quality of white gelatine, I. THEIR TRANSPARENCY. and are perfectly transparant, permitting a full inspec tion of their contents. This property is calculated to prevent the sophistication possible under the use of opaque gelatine. These properties remove from the 2 THEIR ELASTICITY AND LUBRICITY.. Capsules, as completely as possible, everything which prevents their easy deglutition. They may be easily moulded between the finger and thumb, and when held for a moment in the mouth the action of the saliva on the gelatine covers them with a mucilaginous coating, which greatly facilitates their swallowing. 3. THE QUALITY OF THEIR CONTENTS. They are filled with ingredients of the very finest quality obtainable. We invite the closest scrutiny of their contents, and physicians who specify our brand in their prescriptions need have no apprehension on this point. The solubility of these Capsules may be determined by the simplest test. 4. SOLUBILITY. Allowed to lie loosely in the mouth, the contents escape in from two to three minutes, and there is not the remotest possibility of the Capsule passing intact with the fæces, as is sometimes the case with the ordinary filled Capsules. Heretofore the filled Capsules offered the profession of this country 5. THEIR SIZES. have not contained more than ten minims of the liquid. We have on our list Capsules containing all the way from ten minims to half an ounce. The farger Capsules are designed more particularly for the administration of cod liver and castor oils. Notwithstanding their size, they are, owing to the elasticity and lubricity, swallowed as readily as an oyster. The advantages of such Capsules are too obvious to require enumeration. These Capsules are put up in a style in keeping with their elegance, in boxes containing one, two and three dozen. The following few formulæ, selected from the list, will convey an idea of the class of ingredients with which these Capsules are filled: Copaiba, Cubebs and Sandalwood Oil, Essential Oil of Cubebs, 2 minims. Sandalwood Oil, East India, 2 minims. Copaiba, Cubebs and Buchu, Copaiba, best Para, 6 minims. Copaiba, Cubebs and Rhatany, Copaiba, best Para, 6 minims. Oil of Eucalyptus (5 gtts.), With Sweet Almond Oil, q. s. ad., 10 m. Oil of Male Fern, 9 minims. Castor Oil, 5 grams. Castor Oil, 15 grams. Send for Special descriptive circular Filled Elastic Gelatine Capsules." PARKE, DAVIS & CO., Manufacturing Chemists, DETROIT, MICHIGAN. THE NEW YORK MEDICAL ECLECTIC, (NEW SERIES-) DEVOTED TO REFORMED MEDICINE, General Science and Literature. EDITED AND PUBLISHED BY THE Eclectic Medical Publishing Society, of New York. Subscription, $2.00 per Annum in Advance. SINGLE NUMBER, 25 CENTS. The Trade supplied by the AMERICAN NEWS CO., 39 Chambers St., New York; STEVENS BROS., 4 Trafalgar Square, London; TRUBNER & CO., 60 Paternoster Row, London. ALL COMMUNICATIONS SHOULD BE ADDRESSED TO Eclectic Medical Publishing Society, No. 1 Livingston Place, New York. Entered at the Post Office, at New York, N. Y., as second class matter. EDITORIAL NOTES AND SELECTIONS. Prophylactics vs. Therapeutics, 21.-Subinvolution of the Uterus, 23.— Chronic Ringworm of the Scalp, 25.-The Microscopical Examination of Guiteau's Brain, 27.-Signs of Death, 27.-Ozená, 29.-Foreign Body in the Ear, 29.-Nicotinic Amblyopia, 30.-Hypodermic Administration of Cathartics, 30.—Miscellany, 31.—The Eucalyptus in California, 31.-Flies and the Castor Oil Plant, 32.-Speaking without a Tongue, 33.-Iodide of Potassium and Iodine, 35.-Bromide of Potassium in Diabetes Mellitus, 35.-The Use of Ether Subcutaneously, 36.-Vomiting in Pregnancy, 37.-The Common Mushroom, 37.-Flesh Eating No Sin, 37.-Spiræa Ulmaria, 38.-Propylamin in Rheumatic Fever, 40.— Morphine in the Treatment of Puerperal Eclampsia, 40.-Iodoform Treatment, 41.-Barley as Food, 41.-Immunity of the Chinese from Disease, 42.—A Large Verdict for Supplying Impure Water, 43.– Common Grape Vine, 44.-Sanitary Conditions in Surgery, 45.—Excision of a Chancre Forty-eight Hours After its Appearance, 46. SOCIETY MEETINGS. The Eclectic Medical College of the City of New York. .46 47 BOOK REVIEWS. .48 The Medical Eclectic, DEVOTED TO REFORMED MEDICINE, GENERAL SCIENCE AND LITERATURE. NEW SERIES. Edited and Published every month, by THE MEDICAL ECLECTIC PUBLISHING COMPANY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK. VOL. IX. SEPTEMBER, 1882. No. 3. ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. MEDICAL EXPERT TESTIMONY. BY JOHN A. BASSETT, A.M., PH.D. A number of important criminal trials which have been had in the past few months has given unusual prominence to the character and value of expert testimony, as in all these trials the issue was supposed to depend very largely upon the case made by the medical experts. But from the contradictory nature of the evidence presented, and the often irreconcilable statements under oath of the most eminent and scientific witnesses, who were employed at great expense, the cases, as a rule, have been left for juries to decide without reference to the opinions pro or con of the medical experts, witnesses which were intended to be the most important factor in determining the guilt or innocence of the accused. Expert testimony has fallen into disrepute in the courts and by the verdict of the people, and, as we believe, deservedly so, from the willingness (to use no harsher term) of medical men to place themselves in a false and equivocal position, becoming advocates rather than witnesses. Trials have been dragged out to unreasonable lengths. Judges and juries wearied, befogged and stupefied, ultimately to no useful or valuable purpose. And the many cases which are readily cited where the jury, after listening as patiently as possible under the circumstances, for weeks and even months, to the most intricate technical details of a trial from the scientific standpoint, have quietly ignored the whole of it and given a verdict based upon the plain common sense features of the case, sifted from extraneous matter, call for a change in the method of dealing with this class of evidence, a simplification of the details, and a definition from an authoritive legislative or judicial source, of just what such evidence should consist. its scope, and the manner of its presentation. That this will result in materially restricting the present very imperfect and unsatisfactory forms, and cause an entire change in the status of the expert, medical or otherwise, no one will doubt, and the ends of justice will be more promptly and satisfactorily attained. The State of Connecticut has, within a short period, suffered the infliction and borne the large expense of several important criminal trials in which the utmost license was given to expert medical and chemical testimony, both for the prosecution and defense; the results were most unsatisfactory to the prosecution and productive of much ill feeling. In one case the State expended large sums of money in the employment of the highest class of trained experts to determine the identity of two specimens of arsenic, only to find it an impossibility, at least in court, and leaving the question still unsettled. In another case opposing medical experts defied each other by the week at a time, in the most verbose answers, to the hypothetical questions of counsel in determining the exact morbid appearances of the pleural cavities in a supposed case of drowning. The battle of the giants was a tame and listless affair as compared with the wordy war between professional medical examiners and medical experts, who, on the witness stand, contradicted the statements of each other with a positive directness which |