Text-book of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology

This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design. R. J. M. Buchanan's revised guide to forensic medicine and toxicology is a practical handbook for medical students and junior practitioners confronting the legal side of medicine. It ranges across coroners' duties, suspicious deaths, post-mortem investigation, wounds, drowning, poisoning, pregnancy, infanticide, insanity, and testamentary capacity, showing how medical judgment can shape justice at every stage. The opening chapters stress the physician's civic responsibility to certify death carefully, recognize when an inquest is required, and provide evidence that may later be tested in court. Alongside detailed courtroom procedure in England and Scotland, the book explains summonses, subpoenas, fees, cross-examination, and the differing roles of coroners, magistrates, the Procurator-Fiscal, and juries. Its toxicology sections emphasize laboratory proof, with illustrations and tests for arsenic, antimony, mercury, morphine, cyanide, strychnine, and brucine. The later discussion of insanity carefully distinguishes illusion, hallucination, delusion, and mania, blending clinical observation with legal relevance throughout.