In my intermittent career as an expert witness, I have observed that the most eminent men make the worst witnesses. Speaking from the lonely heights of their professional pre-eminence, they sometimes claim that what undoubtedly happened could not have happened, and what could not have happened undoubtedly did happen. Their intellectual distinction and busy schedules excuse them, in their own opinion, from the tiresome necessity to read the documents of the case with minute attention.
Sir Bernard Spilsbury was the most eminent British forensic pathologist of his day, which is to say from Dr Crippen to the outbreak of the second war. The subject of a hagiographical biography whose paperback version is to be found in every second-hand bookshop in the country, he is now the subject of a book that is equal and opposite in its assessment of him. By the end of it, not much of his reputation remains.
Comments
daryl cobb
September 25th, 2008 10:29pmI think that Spilsbury had an ego problem - that being that he was never wrong. The first book about him is so fawning and compliant, it is a wonder that the authors did not pronounce him a god! There were a number of great pathologists, Smith, Simpson, Gardner, Bronte, Grace,etc. What about the man in the Buck Ruxton case? If that had been Spilsbury, he would have been proclaimed to be a genius. As for the accepted rose-tinted view that barristers trembled when questioning him in court, simple answer to that - judges would not have allowed this supermans` opinion to be challenged, and barristers would know it. He certainly would not get such an easy ride in todays courts.
Report this comment
Beryl Fone
September 19th, 2008 6:26amAt some time probaly in the early 1900@s my great grandmother contacted Sir Bernard Spilsbury in connection with the death af one of her 12 surviving children. He proved that her son aged approximately 7 years old did not die of blood poisoning as the doctors said, but died under the surgeons knife, he actyally bled to death, this satisfied her and she got on with raising her one daughter, my grandmother Florence, and her remaining 11 sons.I, together with my great grandmother, think Sir Bernard Spilsbury was a genius.
Report this comment