The registers of the Châtelet at Paris from 1389 to 1392 record several instances in which medical aid was rendered in judicial proceedings. Under date of March 22d, 1389-90, “Maître Jehan Le Conte, sworn surgeon to the king our sire,” reports to Maître Jehan Truquam, lieutenant to the provost, that “upon that day in the morning one Rotisseur had gone from life unto death in consequence of the wounds which he had received on the Monday evening preceding.”[31] Under date of July 22d, 1390, is an account of the examination of one Jehan le Porchier, accused of intent to poison the king (Charles VI.), in which there is reference to a very early instance of toxicological expert evidence. In the wallet of the accused certain herbs were found. The account proceeds: “Richart de Bules, herbalist, was summoned, to him the above-mentioned herbs were shown, and he was commanded that he should examine them and consider well and duly, reporting the truth of what he should find. The said Richart, after having examined them with great diligence, reported that in the box in which these herbs were he had found six leaves, namely: one leaf of _jacia nigra_, and one of round plantain, called in Latin _plantago minor_, and four of sow-thistle (_lasseron_), called in Latin _rosti poterugni_, and says that the leaf of _jatria nigra_ is poisonous, but that in the others there is no poison known to the deponent.”[32] On August 12th, 1390, “Jehan Le Conte and Jehan Le Grant, sworn surgeons of our sire the king,” are present at the torture of a prisoner, but for what purpose does not appear. In another case the same Jehan Le Conte testified that a wound in the head of a deceased person was made with an axe.[33] At a later period in Italy, the infliction of “the question” took place under medical supervision. Zacchias devotes a chapter, _De Tormentis et Pœnis_,[34] to the consideration of the different methods of torture, the degrees of pain and danger attending each, and the conditions of age, sex, and health which render its application inadmissible.[35] During this period, as indeed from the earliest times, the practice of medicine was regulated by law. Thus a law of King Roger of Sicily (1129-54) punished those who practised medicine without authority with imprisonment and confiscation of goods; and an edict of Frederick II. (1215-46) imposed like penalties upon those who presumed to practise except after graduation at the school of Salernum.[36] Medico-legal science was formed in the middle of the sixteenth century by a simultaneous awakening of jurists and physicians to the importance of the subject.