Recent Book: Forensic Medicine
| Published date | 01 April 1960 |
| Author | Keith Simpson |
| Date | 01 April 1960 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X6003300213 |
| Subject Matter | Recent Book |
of recent introduction
but
is given instructions which might well have been
copied verbatim
from
apublication dating from
the
early years of the
century.
It
is pleasing to be able to state that, as well might be expected
from
a
man
of his reputation, Mr. Conway has his feet firmly on the ground; he
makes no exaggerated claims as to what even the most expert document
examiner
can
be expected to accomplish and is outspoken, and in
the
opinion of this reviewer, correct in his opinions
about
the actual capability
of those "graphologists" or "grapho-analysts" who profess to be able to
deduce so much
from
so little handwriting.
This down-to-earth approach is best exemplified in the two chapters on
Evidential Signatures and the Identification of Handwriting, both of which,
on the whole, deal competently with the principles underlying these par-
ticular aspects of the work of the document examiner.
One
serious omis-
sion in the treatment of the identification of handwriting is the
author's
failure to get to grips with the serious problem presented by
the
presence
of disguise. References to disguised handwriting occur
throughout
the text,
but
little of value is said either
about
the
detection of disguise or as to
how the document examiner makes allowance for its presence when identify-
ing disguised handwriting.
The
chapter
"Handwriting Investigations" has obviously
been
written by
one
of
considerable experience in the field work associated with document
examination and there are few detective officers who would fail to profit
by studying it.
The
twenty-nine pages on
'The
Document
Examiner"
make
interesting
reading, for according to this,
more
than
fifty full-time document examiners
are employed in the United States
Federal
Agencies, to say nothing of those
working in the Forensic Science laboratories attached to the larger police
organisations. Even when allowance is
made
for tho larger population
and
the higher rate of crime in the U.S.A., these are astonishing figures
when
one
realises
that
the
document
examiners in official employment in the
United Kingdom can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
The
illustrations,
of
which there are plenty, have been chosen with care
although many lose their force through excessive 'reduction in the effort to
accommodate them within the
narrow
pages of a book.
The
index is good
but
the
"Bibliography"-a
list of books recommended
for
further
study-
includes a
number
of works of purely historical interest
but
lists little dating
from
1950 and nothing later
than
1956.
The
publisher has done his work well, for the
paper
is good and the type
large and clear
but
the price is high
for
a
book
of
about
eighty
thousand
words, something which can probably be said of most books published in
the United States.
Books on
the
subject of document examination written by experienced
practitioners in the
art
are rare and it is to be regretted
that
Mr. Conway
cannot be said to have produced a
book
which measures up to his high
standing and long experience in the profession.
WILSON
R.
HARRISON.
A.
KEITH
MANr: Forensic Medicine. Observation and Interpretation.
Lloyd-Luke (Medical Books). 42s.
THE
INVESTIGATING
POLICE
OFFICER
finds, in practice.
that
there is a distinc-
tion between forensic science
and
forensic medicine, and
that
he needs
some guidance in handling each subject
"at
the scene." Books in each
branch
of practice show little overlap, and English writing in each field has
an established
authority
that
might seem to
make
it difficult for an
author
to write a useful new
book
on either subject.
Mant
has nevertheless
done
this by concerning himself solely with medical
"Observ~tion
and
Interpre-
tation"
at the scene, with what the police
and
coroner's officer the doctor
and
the pathologist st:e
when
they
arrive-and
what they shouid say.
This
approach to the subject has not been attempted before and
Mant
by
keeping strictly to the task he sets himself, has created a' most succe;sful
little work which.will undoubtedly provide much help to those engaged in
this kind of practice. He does
not
attempt
to write a new students'
manual:
April-June
1960 139
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