History of Forensic Medicine
4000 to 3000 B.C. –law –medicine problems written records in Egypt , Sumer , Babylon , India and China
3000 B.C. – Chinese materia medica gives information about poisons
3000-1000 B.C. -Rigveda and other Vedas, mentions about crimes like incest , adultery , abduction , killing an embryo , murder , drunkenness and their punishments , physicians recognised as professionals , Atharva Veda gives details about remedies
27th Century B.C. -Imhotep Grand Vizir , Chief Justice and Chief physician of King Zoser of Ezypt, enacted rules for medical practice
2200 B.C. -Code of Hammurabi (The Babylon king) , oldest know medicolegal code
7th century B.C. – Charaka Samhita ,code regarding training , duties , privileges and social status of physician , description of poisons and treatment.
4th century B.C. – Manusmriti by Manu ,various laws including punishment for various sexual offences , recognized mental incapacity due to intoxication , illness and age
4th to 3rd century B.C. – Arthashastra of Kautilya , defined penal laws , regulated medical practice ,physicians were punished for negligence, medical knowledge utilized for purpose of law , mentions about examination of dead bodies in unnatural deaths . Abortion , sexual offences and kidnapping etc. were punishable offences.
460-377 B.C. – Hippocrates-lethality of wounds, medical ethics
300 B.C.- Rabbis of Rabbinical court , implementing Jewish laws , aid of medical expert in administration of justice
200-300 A.D. – Sushruta Samhita , medicolegal problems , duties of physicians , wounds & fractures classified , Poisons and snakes classification and treatment , modes of administration of poisons
6 Century A.D.- Justinian code (Roman emperor)-regulated practice of medicine & surgery , function of medical expert in legal procedures
1302 A.D.-Bartolomeo De Varignana –First Medicolegal Autopsy
13th Century A.D. – Manual for death investigation in China
1507 A.D. – George , Bishop of Bamberg , penal code for necessity of medical evidence in certain cases
1553 A.D. – Emperor Charles V Germany , Expert medical testimony required for murder , hanging , poisoning , wounding , drowning , infanticide and abortion etc. , several types of homicide which were not punishable e.g. one in which offender was ‘deprived of understanding’
1602 A.D. – First book on forensic medicine by Italian physician Fortunato Fedele
1621-1635- Greatest work was ‘Questiones Medicolegalis’(7 volumes and two additional volumes in 1666) by Paul Zachhias (father of legal medicine & Forensic psychiatry) principal physician of Pope Innocent X and Alexander VII , and an expert before Rota Romanna the Court of Appeal
In Questiones Medicolegalis;
Emphasis on exclusive competence of physicians on pathological mental states , amentia
Classification of mental disorders keeping legal issues at that time
Around 16th century-autopsy in medicolegal cases began to generally practised
18th Century – In Germany Professorships in legal medicine were founded in state
1787 – 1853 A.D. Orfila (professor of chemistry and legal medicine) at Paris introduced precise chemical methods toxicology (father of modern toxicology)
1843 A.D. – Law regarding Criminal Responsibility of insane in England in Mc. Naughten’s case
1985 A.D.- DNA Fingerprinting
