Developments in the Practice of Forensic Medicine
| Published date | 01 October 1970 |
| Date | 01 October 1970 |
| Author | Keith Simpson |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X7004301004 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
KEITH
SIMPSON,
M.D.,
F.R.C.Path.
Professor
of
Forensic Medicine in the University
of
London.
DEVELOPMtiNTS
IN
THE
PRA~TI~E
OF
FORENSI~
MEDI~INE
The world-jamous pathologist reviews progress and the present state
of
forensic medicine in England and Wales.
It
is sometimes said that the investigation of obscure deaths by
pathologists and the C.I.D. is not as satisfactory as it might be, and
that this is due in part to a scarcity of experts in the field of
medica:I-
legal pathology, and in part also to inadequacies in the provision of
posts and oflaboratory facilities by the Universities or the
Ministry-
as if both were not ultimately the responsibility of the Government.
There is, of course, a scarcity of experts in almost every field
of
medicine. Vacancies have become advertised in heavier, bolder type
in the hope of luring applicants of the right calibre, and it must
not
be thought that it is only in Forensic Pathology
that
the ranks are
thin. The number of available posts is
small-as
compared, say,
with those in
Surgery-but
so is the need. The speciality is a restricted
one requiring perhaps no more than fifty top grade experts in this
country.
Interest has been shown in the need for an organised service in
Forensic Pathology since 1936, when an Advisory Committee on the
"Scientific Investigation of Crime" made a recommendation in an
interim report for the establishment in London ofaNational
Medico-Legal Institute. The committee looked to the Home Office,
the London County Council (as it was then), and the University of
London for both basic and running costs, and it made the very
telling point that the £20,000 a year which was being spent on
forensic autopsy investigations for Coroners (at that time) in London
did
not
yield an adequate return in advancing or making any con-
tribution to Medicine or Medical-Legal Science. No University
Department of Forensic Medicine then existed in any Medical School
in England.
This was in fact true, for at that time the few English experts
working in this field such as Spilsbury, Taylor, Grace, and Temple
Gray, had no academic position and no laboratory facilities. Coro-
ners still employed Police Surgeons or
"any
registered medical prac-
titioner" to perform
autopsies-as
permitted by the Coroners' Act
of 1926,and the standard of work was often deplorably low. Obscure
deaths were far too often inadequately investigated, for ancillary
October 1970 267
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