Note 17 — MEDICAL EXPERT EVIDENCE.
Reading edition
Footnote 17:
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I think the general opinion of the profession has endorsed the position of the defence. It is very probable that General Ketchum did die of the disease named, but there are other affections of which he I may have died; and certainly there were no sufficient grounds for asserting that the facts of his case were inconsistent with natural disease. The truth is, disease is often so hidden, its manifestations so obscure, its stamp upon the tissues so faint, that rarely is a physician justified in asserting from the symptoms and a partial negative post mortem, such as was performed on General Ketchum, that any given death could not have been due to a natural cause. Numerous cases of death from natural causes have occurred in which science has been apparently baffled. I have myself seen at least one sudden death in which a careful post mortem failed entirely to detect the cause.