THE ART OF CROSS-EXAMINATION
and returned a verdict for the plaintiff for $240. Next day the learned doctor wrote a four-page letter of thanks and appreciation that the results of his "stage fright" had not been spread before the jury in the closing speech.
An estimate of the susceptibility of occasional juries drawn from some country panels to have their attention diverted from the facts in a case by their fondness for entertainment has at times induced attorneys to try the experiment of framing their questions on cross-examination of medical experts so that the jury will be amused by the questions themselves and will overlook the damaging testimony given by a serious-minded and learned opposing medical witness.
An illustration of this was afforded not long ago by a case brought by a woman against the Trustees of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge. The plaintiff, while alighting from a bridge car, stepped into the space between the car and the bridge platform and fell up to her armpits. She claimed that she had sustained injuries to her ribs, lungs, and chest, and that she was suffering from resultant pleurisy and intercostal neuritis. A specialist on nerve injuries, called by the defence, had testified that there was nothing the matter with the plaintiff, as he had tested her with the stethoscope and had made a thorough examination, had listened at her chest to detect such "tales" as are generally left after pleurisy, and had failed to find any lesions or injuries to the pleura nerve whatsoever.
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