William Hewitt

“ Therefore it may be assumed, that great tact and discrimination is required in the examination in any case where medical evidence is of paramount importance, and consequently it may be believed, that unless gentlemen are properly educated, so as to be able to elicit important truths connected with the science of medicine in all its branches, as well as the legal points in coronership, they cannot be capable of conducting inquiries, in all the integrity, which these solemn occasions demand. ”

“ The office of Coroner is of great antiquity, for in the days of Alfred, King of England, they existed, for he punished with death, a judge who sentenced a party to suffer death upon the coroner’s record, without allowing the culprit to traverse or be tried in another court. ”

“ Where coroners are empowered to act as judges, as in taking an inquisition of death, the act of one of them is of the same force as if they had all joined.
The office of Coroner being by election, does not determine by the demise of the king.
The jurisdiction of coroners is limited to the county, liberty, or precinct, to and for which they are elected and appointed, and cannot be enlarged by any private act or delegation from the crown.
By the common law, if a man had been stricken in one county, and died in another, it was doubtful whether he were indictable or liable in either ”

“ Their knowledge of medical jurisprudence, if to a certain extent comprehended, must be far too limited to conduct enquiries of grave importance. The want of sound medical knowledge must prove the hindrance, because it is frequently observed when medical gentlemen give evidence, they use technicalities employed in the profession, and by stepping into details, they bewilder their hearers, and sometimes themselves also. ”

“ If answered in the negative! surely the time has come for the reception of additional evidence, with the view, not only to improvement in accordance with the age in which we live, but for the maintenance of the legitimate object for which coroners’ courts were first established, and which they profess to uphold in all the integrity of seeking the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. ”

“ The cases narrated, plainly demonstrate that care, tact, delicacy, and discernment, are required at coroners’ inquests—for a two-fold object must be kept in view:—the one to ascertain the proximate cause of death, whether arising from natural or mechanical events, and the other, whether the law can take cognizance of, and bring to justice the incautious, the ill-disposed, and possibly the gross offender against the laws of his country. ”

“ Anciently the Coroner of the Verge had power to do all things within the Verge belonging to the office of the Coroner, to the exclusion of the Coroner of the County; but because the King’s Court was often moveable, it is ordained by stat. of Articuli p. 10super Cartas, c. 3, that on the death of a man, the Coroner of the County shall join in inquisition, to be taken thereof, with the Coroner of the King’s house, and if it happen it cannot be determined before the Steward, process and proceedings shall be thereupon had at common law. ”

“ It is no inglorious vanity in Englishmen to consider the laws of their country afford an example for other nations to follow. Founded on the lasting rock of integrity, shewn in the strict regard for the liberty of the subject, they command the obedience and the admiration of thousands. ”

“ But it must be borne in mind, that a jury of men labouring in other vocations, living in a remote village, seldom attending coroners’ inquests, whose education is so limited, as not to be competent to seek for information, which the knowledge of medical jurisprudence inculcates, are the reasons why they must and do rely on the coroner to extract the evidence required ”

“ In either case, if a party having a competent degree of skill and knowledge, makes an accidental mistake in the treatment of a patient, through which mistake death ensues, he is not thereby guilty of manslaughter.”
“But if where proper medical assistance can be had, a person totally ignorant of the science of medicine—takes on himself a violent and dangerous remedy to one labouring under disease, and death ensues in consequence of that dangerous remedy having been so administered, then he is guilty of manslaughter ”

“ Coroners are officers at common law, because they deal principally with the pleas of the crown; and, possibly, the name may be derived from the manner of holding the inquest in corona popupuli. The Lord Chief Justice of the Queen’s Bench is, by virtue of his office, principal coroner of England; and may, if he pleases, exercise the jurisdiction of coroner in any part of the realm. ”

“ Is it customary for coroners to allow suspected parties present at inquests, to hold earnest conversation with jurymen, during enquiry?
In inquests of grave importance, is it advisable for coroners to summon jurymen all of one parish, especially if the jurymen are directly or indirectly p. 62connected with parties accessory before the facts, in cases of suspected felony?
If coroners doubt the veracity of a medical witness, and they state their reasons for doing so, are they not bound to suggest to the jury the propriety of calling other medical witnesses? ”

“ Bell, how comes this about? Why the man has got inflammation of his bladder, what have you been doing?” The man was rather deaf, but he caught the last words, and looking at Dr. Bell, said “you have done it; you have given me poison.” Dr. Bell remarked, “I have merely given him nux, [52] because his bowels were confined.” I then said “there is no time to be lost; I fear the man will die; you had better put on leeches, as soon as you can, and have recourse to fomentation, and the sooner the better,” when Dr. Bell remarked “Can we not go some where else and talk?” ”

“ Webber told you would be the result—ulceration,” and I exclaimed “Oh! good God, what will become of the poor woman and children?” he replied, “Mrs. Shirley will take care of them.” I begged and prayed of him not to go out of the way and leave me with a dying man without doing something himself, or sending another medical man; he then went up-stairs to Swann, and asked him again whether he would take his medicine, and the man said “No—no more,” I heard him say so. When Dr. Bell came down stairs again, he asked “Who can have set this man against my medicine?” ”

“ Yet, surely, none but vain and ignorant people, assumed or real, can believe in the shadow of a shade, though introduced with all the seductive novelty which specious artifice and subtle ingenuity can devise, as promulgated in the doctrines of a visionary enthusiast and his followers. ”

“ From the cradle to the grave, a predisposition to decay exists in every one which would far more frequently lie latent, until Old Mortality could no longer stay, did not this, the most disgraceful of all-exciting causes, thus step in and cut the thread of life when least expected, and probably least prepared. ”

“ A poor agricultural labourer, William Swann, came to an untimely end, through circumstances of an aggravated character, leaving a widow and nine children to deplore his irreparable loss; for among this, the humblest classes of society, there are ties of affection naturally entwined by which they are endeared to each other, more than is frequently observable among grades of a similar character in towns or cities. ”

“ I then prescribed such medicine as I thought conducive to his benefit, with a view to prepare him for the operation, and I remarked to him previous to his going to Norwich—put yourself under my care, you have a stone in your bladder, but I cannot advise you to be operated upon immediately. He however went to Norwich, and I called upon the deceased whilst he was lodging at Mrs. Phillips’. I never saw a man so much altered as he was in so short a time, which I consider to have entirely arisen from the bad treatment he had received—I really thought he would die. ”

“ Beside those above enumerated, there are particular coroners for each county, who hold their offices (virtuta electionis) in pursuance of the statute 3 Edward I. c. 10, wherein it is provided, that “through all shires sufficient men shall be chosen to be Coroners, of the most loyal and wise knights,” which know well and may best attend upon such offices, and “which lawfully and shall attend and present pleas of the crown.” Therefore the election of a coroner, is by the freeholders of the county, in pursuance of a writ, called a writ De coronatore eligendo, directed to the Sheriff. ”

“ But the responsibility attached to office, involves duties of extraordinary character; and the public have a right to expect that efficient pains-taking persons should be appointed, so that enquiries should be conducted in a clear, straightforward, impartial, manner; otherwise innocence might be tarnished, criminals might escape, and laws—coeval with life, framed for its protection—might be considered non-entities. ”

“ The coroner frequents more public houses than any man alive. The smell of sawdust, beer, tobacco smoke and spirits, is inseparable in his vocation from death in its most awful shapes. He is conducted by the beadle and the landlord to the Harmonic Meeting room, where he puts his hat on the piano, and takes a Windsor chair at the head of a long table, formed of several short tables put together, and ornamented with glutinous rings in endless involutions, made by pots and glasses. As many of the jury as can crowd together at the table p. ”

“ The coroner commenced ordering strangers and witnesses to withdraw, previous to his summing up, when Mr. Webber asked the coroner why he had been summoned, and insisted on his right to be heard, after the palpably incorrect statements which Dr. Bell had been allowed to make—the coroner replied that he did not consider it was necessary for Mr. Webber to give evidence at all. [46] p. 47The foreman of the jury, (Mr. Coleman) said “He thought it would be no more than right, that as Dr. Bell had made a statement, Mr. Webber should be allowed to make a statement also;” ”

“ That the coroner only within whose jurisdiction the body of any person upon whose death an inquest ought to be holden, shall be lying dead, shall hold the inquest, notwithstanding that the cause of death did not arise within the jurisdiction of such coroner ”

“ This privilege, independently of their more official duties, they are entitled at this day to exercise; and are empowered to cause felons to be apprehended, as well as those that have been found guilty after inquisition, as those suspected of guilt, or present at the death, and not guilty; as also burglers and robbers, in respect of whom, no inquisition can be taken. ”

“ Arriving at Nurse Phillips’, I there saw Swann, who was a man about five feet, nine or ten inches in height, in tolerably fair plight, no emaciation, no evidence of extensive organic disease going on, nothing beyond a slight wearing from the irritation which generally accompanies stone in the bladder, and with nothing in his appearance to interdict an operation after a week or two preparation, nor to exclude the benefits of opportune and proper treatment.
It is usual when a consulting surgeon is called in, to allow him to perform the manipulation, but in this case Dr. ”

“ Mr. John Coleby deposed, “I am a surgeon, residing at North Walsham, and I was summoned to attend the deceased last August; he complained of pain across the loins, particular in the region of the left kidney, and I treated him accordingly. After some time I suspected a stone had escaped into the bladder, I passed an instrument twice without any difficulty, in November, the first time without success, but the second time I detected a small stone. ”

“ And we consider the work (which is dedicated to the Lords of the Admiralty,) to be creditable to the industry of the Author.”
Norfolk Chronicle.
“The author is a gentleman, whose profession (a surgeon,) could hardly be supposed to allow him much time to devote to a subject such earnest thought and investigation, as the one he has here attacked. Mr. Hewitt, however, has evidently applied himself to this question con amore, and the work now before us evinces that he has brought to its consideration, a mind capable of patient and careful research into the many and varied causes that bear upon it. ”

“ To the departed, these duties are of little moment, but to the living, they demand the greatest attention, not the less owing to the voice of humanity towards the friends of the deceased than to individuals, who innocent or guilty, may be directly or indirectly, suspected or implicated, in conniving or hastening, the death of a fellow creature. ”

“ Though undertaken more especially with a view to searching out and propounding a remedy for the locality of which it immediately treats, a considerable portion of the work refers to the Encroachments of the Ocean generally, upon all exposed points of the coast, and there is much in it that would apply to the Southern, as forcibly as to the Eastern coast
“Mr. Hewitt describes the plan which he recommends as the best mode of imposing a check to the Encroachments of the Ocean, and shows the supposed elevation of the beach from the deposit of sand likely to be caused by the inventor’s plan. ”

“ The work is written in an earnest, but modest and unpretending style, and the aim of the author is so good and praiseworthy, that should it fail to make the impression on head quarters, desired by its writer, he will, under all circumstances, have the satisfaction of feeling that he has laboured in a good cause. ”