L’expert peut-il se tromper ?

Abstract

The medico-legal examination raises a fundamental problem in scholastic medicine, namely that of the degree of certainty of such knowledge. Indeed, though thinkers have tried to define medicine as scientific knowledge, they cannot but admit that, as Gentile de Foligno (1348) had it: “the most proficient physician can be mistaken.” How can therefore medical expertise be regulated and given enough authority for it to be accepted by society? Drawing both from the sources of legislation—notably those governing forensic expertise—and from the theoretical sources, this paper will try to understand how physicians addressed the issue in the last centuries of the Middle Ages. We will thus see that though aware that knowledge about particular cases is always likely to be misleading, they considered setting up objective rules so as to come as close as possible to the truth and thereby to establish a trustworthy expertise.

Keywords

• medical expertise
• the Middle Ages
• scholastic medicine
• forensic medicine
• medical certainty