AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
In cheerfully complying with an expressed request of the publishers, asking me to prepare a "Hand-Atlas of Legal Medicine," I have been actuated by a variety of motives. In legal medicine, as in other branches, the desire for illustrations becomes daily more apparent, and this desire can be complied with but in part within the limits of the general text-books. Further, the hand-atlases which have already been issued by this publish-iug-firm exhibit evidences of decided progress in this department of art, and in consequence, as also because of their inherent qualities, have been accorded a widespread recognition. Finally, an opportunity was for the first time presented to provide a cheap book, and therefore one of easy acquisition, which would enable the practising physician, as also the student of medicine, to become acquainted graphically with the most important occurrences of medicolegal interest.
The illustrations are entirely original, and have been prepared either from recent cases or from museum specimens. A few have been reproduced from other publications, but they also are original observations.
In the preparation of the atlas my purpose has been that it should serve for further illustration of a good textbook—that it should be, to a certain extent, a supplement to the latter. I have therefore limited the descriptive
text, and have not considered a series of illustrations such as are found in every good text-book of legal medicine and in other widely distributed books, as, for instance, blood-spectra, spermatozoa, etc. This, on the one hand, diminishes the cost of the book, and, on the other, permits of the introduction of other important illustrations.
An exhaustive account of the subject has not been thought of, nor has it been considered possible. I have rather striven, as far as space, opportunity, and a regard to the cost permitted, to portray instructive instances of at least the most important medicolegal occurrences.
The colored plates and the photographic reproductions have been very ably executed by Mr. A. Schmitson, artist, and, for a layman, with an accuracy of comprehension worthy of commendation.
My two assistants, Drs. Haberda and Richter, privat-docents, have heartily co-operated in the preparation of the work, and to them, for their assistance, I express my warmest thanks.
PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATION.
There is perhaps no field of science in which the value of illustrations is greater than in forensic medicine. The problems which confront the coroner, the post-mortem examiner, and the courts of law must be solved by the presentation of indisputable facts. Many of these facts can be fully appreciated and understood only by the medicolegal expert of years of experience. But a volume such as this, made up chiefly of photographs and original drawings of various lesions and pathological conditions, taken directly from actual cases, supplies to every physician and student an enormous array of medicolegal data, such as would take one many years to acquire alone and unaided. This volume is a veritable treasure-house of information, gained from the rich material of one of the greatest institutes of legal medicine in the world, and collected by one who, until his death a few months ago, was perhaps the ablest living expert in his chosen domain of work.
The text has been Englished by Dr. Kelly, and the translation carefully compared with the original by the Editor-in-chief. Every effort has been made, while preserving so far as possible the difficult style of the author, to make the statements explicit and clear. There are some words in the text (such as lochbruch) which have no good equivalents in our tongue, and these have been necessarily rendered into literal English.
FREDERICK PETERSON.
New York, April, 1898.
