Genre:

Essay

Subjects:

Crime, Disability, Medical Practitioners, Expertise

    During the 'now notorious tribunal' of a paymaster in the '6th Inniskilling Dragoons' held at Mhow in Central India in the spring of 1862 (556), it was urged that one of the chief witnesses should be 'disqualified from giving evidence by reason of his notorious blindness' (568). When called to give his evidence, however, the witness 'explained that there was not, and never had been, any foundation for the assertion that his eyesight was defective' (576), and he produced a letter from 'W. R. Wilde, Surgeon Oculist in Ireland to Her Majesty', which certified that the patient had been 'carefully examined and tested' and was found to be 'not short-sighted, nor in any way affected with defective vision' (576n.).