Publication information |
Source: The Practical Medicine Series of Year Books Source type: book Document type: essay Document title: “Forensic Medicine” Author(s): Moyer, Harold N. Editor(s): Butler, George F.; Favill, Henry B.; Bridge, Norman; Moyer, Harold N. Volume number: 7 Publisher: Year Book Publishers Place of publication: Chicago, Illinois Year of publication: 1902 Pagination: 243-62 (excerpt below includes only pages 254-55) |
Citation |
Moyer, Harold N. “Forensic Medicine.” The Practical Medicine Series of Year Books. Ed. George F. Butler, Henry B. Favill, Norman Bridge, and Harold N. Moyer. Vol. 7. Chicago: Year Book, 1902: pp. 243-62. |
Transcription |
excerpt of essay |
Keywords |
Leon Czolgosz (trial: personal response); Leon Czolgosz; Leon Czolgosz (mental health). |
Named persons |
Leon Czolgosz; William McKinley; Charles K. Mills; James W. Putnam. |
Notes |
Click here
to view the item by Charles K. Mills referred to below.
The essay (below) includes the following footnote. Click on the asterisk
preceding the footnote to navigate to its location in the text (p. 255):
* Philadelphia Medical Journal, October 26, 1901. From title page: Issued Monthly.
From title page: June, 1902.
From title page: The Practical Medicine Series of Year Books: Comprising
Ten Volumes on the Year’s Progress in Medicine and Surgery.
From title page: Volume VII: Materia Medica and Therapeutics; Preventive
Medicine; Climatology; Forensic Medicine.
From title page: Under the General Editorial Charge of Gustavus P.
Head, M. D., Professor of Laryngology and Rhinology, Chicago Post-Graduate
Medical School.
From title page: Edited by George F. Butler, Ph. G., M. D.; Henry B.
Favill, A. B., M. D.; Norman Bridge, A. M., M. D.; Harold N. Moyer, M.
D.
From page [4]: Harold N. Moyer, M. D., Assistant Professor of Medicine, Rush Medical College, Chicago. |
Document |
Forensic Medicine [excerpt]
The Czolgosz Case. The trial of the
assassin of President McKinley brought out comparatively nothing of forensic
importance. Both in the medical and lay press encomiums were showered upon the
expedition and dignity with which the trial was conducted, and incidentally
on the medical profession for not raising the plea of mental incapacity. As
a lawyer expressed it, after the verdict was rendered, “the counsel appointed
for Czolgosz was for the purpose of seeing that he did not escape anything that
was coming his way.”
As to the mental condition of Czolgosz but little has
been published. J. W. Putnam, who examined him, stated that he was a young man
in good health, twenty-eight years of age, and of steady habits. He was educated
in the public schools until he was fifteen and was at intervals a wire-worker,
blacksmith’s helper and farm hand. He had saved $400 in six years. At the age
of twenty-one he became a convert to anarchism and a disbeliever, according
to his own statement, in religion, government, law, God and marriage. He did
not at the time of his examination [254][255] sham
insanity, and, while he refused to discuss his crime with his lawyers, he did
discuss it with others. In appearance he was more intelligent than the average
murderer. So far as the meager data at hand show, there was nothing that would
lead one to think that Czolgosz was insane, nor did there seem to be any special
signs of degeneracy, though he probably belonged to the latter class.
The assassination of President McKinley brought out
numerous articles, notably one by C. K. Mills, on “Political Assassins.”*
He divides political assassins into four classes: (1) Sane conspirators; (2)
assassins clearly recognizable as insane; (3) degenerates who are not insane;
(4) degenerates of doubtful sanity.
The weight of evidence seems to be in favor of the
view that Czolgosz was an anarchist who was not insane, but who presented a
certain degenerate type common to the class.