Legal Medicine in History

Abstract

Ed Michael Clark, Catherine Crawford Cambridge University Press, £40, pp 364 ISBN 0-521-39514-3 Legal Medicine in History is a series of essays on a wide range of forensic history, culled from a meeting at Lancaster University in 1987. The dozen or more subjects range from the corruption in the American coroner system at the turn of the century to anarchism in fin de siecle France. A reviewer can only pick out a few samples to display, usually those which interest him the most. These include an intriguing account of the political wrestling that went on in London between the world wars, when repeated attempts to found a National Institute of Forensic Medicine bit the dust while forensic science laboratories won the day. The Medico- Legal Society was most active in the campaign, with figures such as Sir Bernard Spilsbury and Lord Atkin pressing for a …