In concluding this part of my subject I would venture to enjoin upon the medical witness that he should enter the court room as he would approach the bedside, a calm intelligence, untramelled by fear or prejudice, instigated by no ignoble purpose and inspired only with the desire to elucidate such questions as are propounded for his consideration, in a manner that shall accord with advanced science and the views of the most enlightened of his profession. The ancient injunction, "Thou shall not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn," appears to be pretty generally observed towards all kinds of animals, the world over, with the exception of medical experts, who do an amount of public treading at a rate of compensation inferior to that accorded to the time of a first-class shoemaker. With your permission I will relate an example illustrating the truth of this statement. A murder has been committed; the defense set up insanity, and a judicial investigation is had, to determine the _mental_ condition of the accused; six experts are summoned to assist in the trial; they are detained three days and a half; a bill for expert service is rendered the county, endorsed by the District Judge and the District Attorney, for an amount below the actual loss that each had sustained by absence from his practice, and the munificent sum allowed by the county for three and a half days service is fifteen dollars a piece. The legal obligations on the part of the expert to respond to the summons of the court is inexorable; but there is no corresponding obligation of the county to remunerate the expert beyond common witness fees of two dollars per diem. It would seem that the five dollars allowed in the case under consideration was a mere gratuity; and counsel on careful investigation have advised the experts that they can not recover the full amount of their claims. Such, gentlemen, is the anomalous position of medical witnesses before the courts. Now, Mr. President, a physician's time is practically his capital, his stock in trade, if you please. Is not, therefore, this exercise of judicial authority, in effect, the appropriation of private property to public uses without just compensation? If the courts of this county have the right to compel my attendance, as an expert, three days and a half at the rate of four dollars and twenty-eight cents per diem, it would have an equal right to extend that attendance to fifty days, or a year, at the rate of $1,562.20. Now if my income be $1,000 per month, the county of Santa Clara has the legal right to appropriate to public uses $10,438.60 of my money, my only redress being to supplicate the Legislature to restore, as a charity, what is mine by right.