speaker has had several hours’ sleep as when he has had none, would then be less often said.  Lies, intentional and unintentional, are much seldomer told in answer to precise than to leading questions.  Another frequent error is to inquire whether one cause remains, and not whether the effect which may be produced by a great many different causes, not inquired after, remains.  As when it is asked, whether there was noise in the street last night; and if there were not, the patient is reported, without more ado, to have had a good night.  Patients are completely taken aback by these kinds of leading questions, and give only the exact amount of information asked for, even when they know it to be completely misleading.  The shyness of patients is seldom allowed for.

How few there are who, by five or six pointed questions, can elicit the whole case and get accurately to know and to be able to report where the patient is.

[Sidenote:  Means of obtaining inaccurate information.]

I knew a very clever physician, of large dispensary and hospital practice, who invariably began his examination of each patient with “Put your finger where you be bad.”  That man would never waste his time with collecting inaccurate information from nurse or patient.  Leading questions always collect inaccurate information.

At a recent celebrated trial, the following leading question was put successively to nine distinguished medical men.  “Can you attribute these symptoms to anything else but poison?” And out of the nine, eight answered “No!” without any qualification whatever.  It appeared, upon cross-examination:—­1.  That none of them had ever seen a case of the kind of poisoning supposed. 2.  That none of them had ever seen a case of the kind of disease to which the death, if not to poison, was attributable. 3.  That none of them were even aware of the main fact of the disease and condition to which the death was attributable.

Surely nothing stronger can be adduced to prove what use leading questions are of, and what they lead to.

I had rather not say how many instances I have known, where, owing to this system of leading questions, the patient has died, and the attendants have been actually unaware of the principal feature of the case.

[Sidenote:  As to food patient takes or does not take.]

It is useless to go through all the particulars, besides sleep, in which people have a peculiar talent for gleaning inaccurate information.  As to food, for instance, I often think that most common question, How is your appetite? can only be put because the questioner believes the questioned has really nothing the matter with him, which is very often the case.  But where there is, the remark holds good which has been made about sleep.  The same answer will often be made as regards a patient who cannot take two ounces of solid food per diem, and a patient who does not enjoy five meals a day as much as usual.