Considered as a bridge between the humanities and biology, forensic medicine arouses curiosity but also suspicion. It can be a list of routine activities in which lawyers and doctors participate, but also a challenge and a puzzle, a starting point for chilling thrillers. It is inherently related to forensics, and its history has been written for centuries.
- Forensic medicine is a medical specialty whose main area of interest is life and death in the light of the law
- The history of forensic medicine goes back to ancient times, but the first “textbook” containing topics in this science dates back to the XNUMXth century
- In Poland, autopsies were performed as early as the XNUMXth century; the autopsy was carried out, among others, by Stefan Batory’s body
- The scale of forensic achievements is evidenced by the discovery of the “man of ice”, whose corpse was dissected 5300 years after his death
- You can find more up-to-date information on the TvoiLokony home page
What is forensics?
Forensic medicine is a medical specialty whose main area of interest is life and death in the light of the law. It is customary to assign autopsies to her, but post-mortem examinations to determine the cause of death are just one of the many activities that forensic specialists engage in. Their competences are also necessary in the case of examining the injured, identifying people and human remains, exhuming corpses or collecting materials for research from the scene of an accident or crime. It is forensic medics who are responsible for issuing opinions on medical malpractice cases, in criminal and civil trials, and their role is also to establish the degree of kinship (mainly paternity).
A wide range of activities for doctors of this specialization enables interdisciplinarity of forensic medicine. It is a field that makes extensive use of such sciences as toxicology, studying the properties of toxic agents and their impact on the body, serohematology, which analyzes the genetic material in terms of the presence of antibodies, antigens, but also cardiovascular diseases, or traumatology, dealing with surgical treatment organs affected by injuries. In their work, forensic doctors also use psychological knowledge, especially in the field of thanatology, which allows them to take a closer look at the dying process.
Forensic medicine is closely related to forensics – the science of recognizing and detecting the so-called negative social phenomena (most often these are crimes) and their perpetrators. This field makes extensive use of its achievements both in the area of tactics, strategies and forensic methodology, as well as in the field of investigative techniques.
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Science with history
Although the origins of forensic medicine date back to BC (in the writings of Suetonius, from the year 44 BC, you can find a note about the autopsy of Julius Caesar), the official birth of science is considered to be the publication of the work entitled Hsi Yuan Chi Lu (trans. Purification of evil or The way of avenging the wrongs). Written in Chinese, a textbook by the first known anthropologist – Song Ci (Song T’zu) – was published in 1248. Its content proves how developed was the then forensic medicine. The book consisted of five books and covered a wide range of topics, including forensic medical examinations, injuries, miscarriages, suffocation, drowning and poisoning. Although the publication successfully served Chinese doctors, it did not leave the Chinese borders for a long time.
Compared to China, however, Europe still lagged far behind in the field of forensics. Suffice it to say that the first publications collecting the findings and experiences of doctors in this area of science to date were not published until the XNUMXth century. The author of the most important of them – Fortunato Fidelis from Palermo – discussed in his Of medical relations (issued in 1598), inter alia, medical malpractice and sexual issues; He also drew attention to the most common cause of sudden death, which, according to him, was heart disease.
Just over two decades later, in 1621, another Italian physician – Paolo Zacchia – in his work Medico-legal issues for the first time he used the term “legal medicine”. Although he is considered to be the father of forensics, his book has been controversial for centuries – it contained many superstitious views and recommendations about magic, demons and witches. Nevertheless, since the publication of the textbook, legal medicine has recorded not only increased interest, but also systematic development.
The modest duo of Italians were quickly joined by other medics, intrigued by the relationship between law and medicine: Thomas Bartholin and Dr. Schreyer – both examining the lungs of newborns who were born still or died after giving birth. As early as the end of the XNUMXth century, many countries introduced the obligation to perform an autopsy in the case of a disputed cause of death, especially in situations where the death is the subject of legal proceedings.
In the next two centuries, the importance of forensics in resolving legal disputes was undisputed, and the specialty experienced a real boom.
Forensic medicine in Polish
Poland was not lagging behind and was also successful in the field of forensics. Although initially the actions taken to determine the cause of death were neither codified nor covered by any official procedure, the newly available tools were increasingly eagerly used to discover the truth about the death of important people in the country.
A full autopsy in Poland was carried out, inter alia, after the death of Stefan Batory, who suffered from a serious kidney disease. Doubts as to the cause of the ruler’s death probably arose after the controversial therapies used by his two conflicting medics – Mikołaj Bucelli and Simon Simmonius. Their prescription for the head of state disease (today’s name is polycystic kidney disease – the disease is caused by a mutation of genes and manifests itself – already at the stage of organ failure – with severe abdominal pain, hematuria, arterial hypertension and renal colic) was rubbing the body, drinking wine or cinnamon water and putting leeches.
After the dissection carried out in 1586, it was established that Stefan Batory probably died as a result of cardiovascular and renal failure caused by uremia. The body of Jan III Sobieski was also subjected to autopsy in 1696, and in this case it was also established that the cause of death was kidney disease.
Activities of this type were regulated by legal acts for a long time. The German law has become a model for Poland as well Criminal Constitution Carolina Charles V, which included many activities and cases attributed to forensic science today. In Poland, it functioned almost until the end of the XNUMXth century, although in the meantime attempts were made to codify the Polish one (the most interesting ones were led by Bartłomiej Groicki, a lawyer and writer at the Higher Court of German Law in Krakow).
The fact that Poles followed Western trends is evidenced by, for example, a famous event in 1613, when in Pruszcz Gdański the city physicist Joachim Oelhaf performed a public autopsy of a newborn born with numerous deformations of the body and internal organs. His precise notes and experience resulted in great interest in such research. A little over a hundred years later – in 1724 – newborn twins were autopsied, dissecting the entire skeletal system of one of them and protecting the muscular system with the preservative fluid of the other child.
Progress in practice has contributed significantly to the opening of academic doors to forensics. The first chairs entirely devoted to legal medicine appeared in universities at the turn of the 1805th and 1808th centuries. The first in Poland was the Chair and Department of Forensic Medicine of the Krakow Academy, established in 1825. The example of scholars from the Austrian partition was followed by researchers from the University of Vilnius (XNUMX) and the University of Warsaw (XNUMX). The development of forensic research coincided with an explosion of interest in a new science that draws heavily from both medicine and law – forensics.
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The power of medicine
Although postmortem examinations are not unusual for forensic specialists, and a large part of their work is routine, their practice is also challenging. Many of them clearly prove that the centuries-old achievements and progress of legal medicine can contribute to spectacular and breakthrough discoveries.
One of them was an unusual autopsy carried out in the 90s in Austria. The frozen body of a man who died in the high mountains was placed on the table of the local forensic medics. For local doctors it would not be anything extraordinary, because – unfortunately – in their work they often had to perform an autopsy of tourists who died in the nearby Alps. This time, however, it turned out that the “tourist” came from far away and … from a long time. Hibernatus, as researchers called it, lay at an altitude of 3200 meters above sea level for about … 5300 years.
It turned out that the corpse of our ancestor was preserved in such a good condition thanks to the wind-drying and freezing – the man was “stuck” in a depression, in the zone of eternal snow. His body did not appear until the glacier began to melt as a result of the fallout from the Sahrawi dust. For scientists, the opportunity to take a closer look at the body of a man who lived several centuries ago was an unprecedented event.
Thanks to the available tools and decades of autopsy methods, the researchers were able to determine not only the probable cause of death of the “climber”, but also his probable age, profession and health condition. Meticulous analysis even made it possible to recreate the last hours of Hibernatus’ life. The “man of ice” was most likely killed, attacked by three attackers. Who they were and whether their bodies – because the ancestor found most likely stabbed them fatally with his weapon (bow and knife) – are also found in the Austrian Alps, it is not known. Perhaps this question should be answered by a forensic scientist …
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