Thomas Percival’s Medical ethics, published in 1803, is considered the first fundamental treatise on the conduct of physicians in hospital and private practice. Medical ethics was an expanded version of this earlier pamphlet, Medical jurisprudence. …
The notes on Draper’s lectures from fourth-year student, Ralph C. Larrabee, concern signs of death and the onset of rigor mortis and the autopsy of an arsenic poisoning case.
Taylor’s Medical jurisprudence was a standard manual for the study of legal medicine. It was first printed in London in 1844, and an American edition followed in the next year. At least twelve editions were produced by the end of the 19th century,…
George B. Magrath’s reputation involved him in some of the most celebrated and notorious criminal trials of the early 20th century, and he performed an examination on Alessandro Berardelli, the guard at the Slater & Morrill Shoe Factory who, along…
George B. Magrath’s reputation involved him in some of the most celebrated and notorious criminal trials of the early 20th century, and he performed an examination on Alessandro Berardelli, the guard at the Slater & Morrill Shoe Factory who, along…
Published in the period following the resignation of Alan R. Moritz's and the appointment of Richard Ford, this article from The Saturday Evening Post criticizes the coroner system and promotes the importance of the medical-legal research work at…
While unclear how or even whether this statement of beliefs was ever used, it provides an overview of the purpose and function of the Department of Legal Medicine.
Following the gift of the Magrath endowment, the Medical School formed a committee to examine the scope, nature, and activities related to legal medicine. These minutes of the committee’s initial meeting outline the proposed activities, association…
After some weeks abroad, Alan R. Moritz sent these reflections on legal medicine in an academic context to Mrs. Lee to help crystalize the direction and goals of the new department.
My greatest problem to date has been to arrive at some more or less…
This printed version of Rush’s medical lectures at the University of Pennsylvania includes an 1810 lecture on the study of medical jurisprudence—thought to be the first American treatise published on the subject. Rush opens his lecture stating,…
An MGM film originally intended as a documentary on the work of the Department of Legal Medicine was later recast as a fictional drama—Mystery Street (also known as Murder at Harvard.) The plot concerns a police detective (Ricardo Montalban)…
Following the discovery of charred human bones and some artificial teeth in the laboratory of John White Webster, Harvard's Erving Professor of Chemistry, scientific experts were called in to provide anatomical and chemical analyses of the remains on…
Following the discovery of charred human bones and some artificial teeth in the laboratory of John White Webster, Harvard's Erving Professor of Chemistry, scientific experts were called in to provide anatomical and chemical analyses of the remains on…
George B. Magrath presented this lecture describing a typical investigation to the members of the Massachusetts Medico-Legal Society on its meeting on February 1, 1922.