Chapter 2: Historical Perspectives

*Legal medicine*

*____* was born as a separate branch of medical discipline on its own merit and has now reached its present professional and academically respected status.

Materia Medica

Existing records confirm an interaction between legal and medical matters and this is to be found in the histories of the *Sumerian, Babylonian, Indian, Egyptian, and Assyrian civilizations* apart from Chinese and Indian data on ______ which include in them information on many poisons

Imhotep

the Grand Vizier is considered as the first medicolegal expert. He was both Chief Justice and the Chief/Personal Physician to Pharaoh Zoster, the ruler of Egypt.

Imhotep

He was claimed to be the God of Medicine.

Code of Hammurabi of Babylon

the oldest written code of law written by Hammurabi, King of Babylon at about 2200 BC.

Code of Hammurabi of Babylon

It is well known for its provision of punishment of physicians found wanting and guilty of improper treatment with the potential for civil and criminal responsibility.

Code of the Hittites

which constituted a lengthy table of legal compensation for personal injuries.

Hippocrates

the physician of antiquity and the father of medicine, dealt in his teachings with medical ethics, the lethality of wounds, causes of sudden death, etc.

Aristotle

Father of Modern Family Planning, as he advocated population control by inducing abortion before animation of fetus.

Roman Law

most important of the Pre-Christian legal codes.

Lex Aquillia

dealt with the lethality of wounds.

Tabulae Duodecem

contained a number of provisions of medico legal significance concerning matters such as competency of the mentally ill, gestation period for development of the human fetus, euthanasia, eugenics, etc.

Amicus curiae

honorary advisors and paid no fees for their expert opinions or advice given.

Caesarean section surgery

operation that was advised to save the life of the child and also the solution of the medical problem of inheritance.

Antistius

the physician, opined by externally examining the body of Julius Caesar.

Pliny the Elder

his treatise mentioned about suspended animation, sudden and natural deaths, suicide, etc.

Justinian Code

prescribed regulation of medical practice and imposition of penalties for malpractice.

it has been clearly enunciated in the Digest that Physicians are not ordinary witnesses but they give judgement rather than testimony.

Wergeld

was paid to the victim by the suspect criminal, or in the case of murder, to the victim’s family and relatives.

Lex Alemannorum

gives precise anatomical details of wounds and the reparation given with the situation and gravity of these wounds and orders that medico legal examinations were to be made for that purpose.

Charlemagne

in his Capitularies enjoined that the judges should seek medicolegal opinion from competent experts.

Frederick II

Ordained that, would-be-physicians fulfill the following requirements if they wanted to practice the art of medicine as physicians.

Hsi Yuan Lu

contained descriptions of postmortem examinations of bodies and pointed to differences between those injuries caused by sharp and blunt instruments.

Pope the Innocent III

ordained the appointment of doctors in Law Courts for examination and opinion in case of injuries

Hugo De Lucca

a famous surgeon, was appointed as medicolegal expert in Bologna, Italy.

The Pope

through a Bill, allowed autopsy examinations with the penalty of excommunication being withdrawn from those involved in such examinations.

Constitutio Criminalis Carolina

Emperor Charles V issued a more extensive penal code called the ________.

Michaelis and Bohn

It held the first formal lectures in forensic pathology at the University of Leipzig, Germany, where students were instructed in natural and violent deaths.

Ambroise Pare

wrote a treatise on different medicolegal problems including death from various causes, how to differentiate antemortem injuries from postmortem ones, etc. Model Case reports were also incorporated.

Methodus Testificandi

dealing with wounds, poisoning and sexual matters were compiled by Codronchius, an Italian physician of Imola.

Fortunatus Fidelis of Palermo

published a systematic treatise on legal medicine in 4 volumes entitled De Relationibus Medicorum.

Paulo Zacchia

a papal physician, published Quaestiones medicolegales covering not only different aspects of Forensic Medicine but also that of public health and pastoral medicine in the 17th century.

Valentini

published Pandectae medico-legalese— a work to challenge that of Zacchia.

Uden and Pyl

The first medicolegal journal was published in Berlin under the Editorship of __________in the latter part of the 17th century.

Chairs of Professorship

_____________ in Medical Jurisprudence was established in German, Italian and French Universities in the early part of the 18th century.

Andrew Duncan

Became the first Professor in the subject at Edinburgh and gave his first set of lecturers in 1807.

Sir Robert Christison

Became Professor of Medical Jurisprudence at the age of 24 years in 1882. He initially became famous as a medicolegal expert at this time in Case of Burke and Hare and later produced the first complete British pharmacopeia.

Test of fire

The defendant was required to carry hot coal or iron bars and if his body got burnt, he was declared guilty.

Ordeal by water

Here the accused was held submerged in water for sometime, was disproved to be guilty if did not turn unconscious.

Poison test

The deadly poisons were forced upon the accused and slightest discomfort shown by him declared his guilt.

Death by compurgator

Parties in both criminal and civil cases could satisfy the demands of the court by swearing to the facts under Christian oath.

McNaughten Rule

one of the greatest boons implemented to the mentally unsound in English law during this century.

Alfred Swaine Taylor

the most famous name in English Legal Medicine in the 19th Century. He became a Professor of Medical Jurisprudence at the Guy’s Hospital Medical School in 1834.

Principle and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence

Alfred Swaine Taylor’s first edition of ________________ published in the year 1865.

Koran, Hadis, and Sara

The Hindu rulers more or less followed the laws prescribed by Manusmriti and Kautilya’s Arthashasthra, but the Muslim rulers ruled with laws based on ______ .

Mughal era

While crimes and punishments remained the same during the _____, unnatural sexual transgressions increased and execution by trampling under an elephant's feet or being thrown to wild animals was also practiced.

Coroner’s system

Inquest by _____ was introduced in Calcutta and Bombay by Coroner’s Act, 1871 with Police systems all over the rest of the country.

Medical College of Calcutta

first medical college of the country, commenced in the year 1835.

Dr. CTO Woodford

first chair in Medical Jurisprudence was established in 1845. The first Professor of Medical Jurisprudence.

Dr. Buckley in Madras

he held the first postmortem in India in 1663 in a case of suspected Arsenic poisoning.

Indian Penal Code

promulgated by Act XIV of 1860 and thus codified various crimes and punishments.

Criminal Procedure Code

enacted by the Act XXV of 1861 and Act VIII of 1869 streamlined the criminal procedures.

Indian Evidence Act of 1872

codified laws in respect of evidence in case of trials in the courts. After the independence in 1947, new amendments and statutes were added to these Acts.

Dr Jaising P Modi

Father of Indian Forensic Medicine.