DOCTORS AND THEIR ROLE IN HALACHIC RULINGS - Yevamos 92 - Daf Yomi

The Rogatchover Gaon was writing a letter (in a 1933 letter to Rabbi Shimon Schwab, deciphered by Rabbi Aryeh Carmell) regarding the issue of a father learning with his son other studies. He cites a Gemora in Sanhedrin (78) regarding a case where one man hit another with a stone or a fist, and caused injury to the other. The victim was initially assessed to be viable, and then died. The halacha is that the murderer is exempt from capital punishment. We say that either the victim's health worsened afterwards (not directly due to the striking), or that one cannot be found guilty of a murder after he had been previously acquitted of it. This, says the Rogatchover, is unlike the Gemora in Yevamos (92), which states that we would say that this was not a legitimate legal ruling, but rather, a blunder. If it would be regarded as an error on Beis Din’s part, they should have the ability of ruling again, and convicting the murderer. It emerges from here that the Torah assigns the authority to evaluate and to rule to the expert doctors.