Guest Editorial for Academic Forensic Pathology

Scholarship on the history of forensic medicine and science has grown considerably over the last decade, e.g., (1 -9). Written by professional historians and scholars of other humanities and social science fields, such works have enriched our understanding of the historical development of forensic science disciplines while approaching this history from varied perspectives, whether history and philosophy of science, medical history, legal history, social and political history, global history, or science and technology studies. The articles in these two issues of Academic Forensic Pathology (AFP) were written by professional historians, forensic pathologists, and other forensic professionals, and those such as Jeffrey Jentzen, who do both kinds of work. These issues of AFP are meant to provide a sampling of the kind of scholarly work that is being done on the history of forensic medicine and science while creating a space for discussion of the role that history has played—and continues to play—in contemporary forensic developments.

Taken as a whole, these articles reflect the varied areas of expertise of the authors, a few of whom are themselves participants in the history that is recounted. While AFP as a journal is focused on forensic pathology, a subject treated in these articles in some detail, the articles also address the histories of other fields that are located within or connected to the forensic enterprise, ranging from forensic toxicology to criminalistics to disaster victim identification, military medicine, and public health. The articles cover a broad geographical scope—including the United States, United Kingdom, South Africa, and China—and a temporal focus starting in the 18th century if not earlier, and continuing into the present. The articles presented here are thus the product of a range of academic research and linguistic competencies, as well as “insider” experience that, it will be clear to the reader, have made these historical accounts richer.

Given the broad temporal scope of these articles, which cover a period spanning centuries, it should not be surprising that one key theme is the advancement of the knowledge, practices, and technologies underlying forensic medicine and science. Katherine D. Watson connects the early history of modern toxicology to the rising incidence of criminal poisoning during the mid-19th century. Out of this period emerged reliable tests for detecting arsenic and other toxins within the body as well as new recognition among courts and the public of toxicological expertise (10). In discussing the history of disaster victim identification in the United States, Vicki Daniel examines long-term shifts from identification practices rooted in family members or other acquaintances’ viewing of the deceased (identification by “sight recognition”) to a more sophisticated repertoire of procedures based on photography, fingerprinting, and dental identification (11). Daniel Asen examines how China’s first medicolegal experts began to adopt modern understandings of putrefaction and forensic entomology while reconciling these new bodies of scientific knowledge with the Washing Away of Wrongs, a handbook of forensic procedure that had influenced Chinese death investigation practices for centuries (12).

These and other articles provide texture for understanding the deep shifts in science and technology that have made modern forensic disciplines what they are today. Yet, just as important as tracing change over time is the examination of particular developments within their historical contexts. Given that forensic medicine and science exist at the intersection of medicine, science, technology, society, law, and politics, these contexts can be quite important. For example, one theme that can be followed through the articles is the importance of law—specifically, the development of legal frameworks that define the roles of medical experts, coroners, or others in the death investigation process. This issue is touched upon in the articles of Jeffrey Jentzen for colonial North America and the early United States, Gert Saayman for South Africa, and Zhiyuan Xia for China after 1949 (13 -15).

Another context explored in these articles is the role of military institutions and war in the development of particular forensic fields.

As Vicki Daniel discusses, during the Civil War the identification of deceased soldiers and recovery of their remains became pressing issues for families of the dead and the federal government. Out of this experience of mass death emerged a new societal appreciation of the importance of identifying the dead, a new commitment by the state to account for the remains of the fallen, and the new popularity of chemical embalming (11). As another example, in a study of the formation of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System (AFMES), Victor W. Weedn traces how the development of military medicine created openings for pathology education, research, and practice within the U.S. military and federal government, including the development of capabilities in forensic pathology. Originating during the U.S. Civil War as a collection of surgical and other specimens, the Army Medical Museum evolved over time into the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, which became the institutional home for the AFMES (established in 1988) before the AFIP’s closure in 2011 (16).

The development of forensic medicine and science always occurs within the context of particular political institutions and this too constitutes an important theme in these articles. For example, the history of the position of coroner—an English institution that has fundamentally influenced the evolution of death investigation in the United States—is discussed in Jeffrey Jentzen’s article, which examines Paul Revere’s (1734-1818) role as Suffolk County (Boston) coroner. Jentzen presents perspectives on the early history of the coroner system in North America at a point before physicians played a significant role in death investigation. Jentzen examines the various roles that Revere played as a coroner involved in routine death investigations, first president of the Boston Board of Health, and an early innovator in the field of dental identification (13).

The interaction between political and legal institutions and medical expertise is a theme that is explored for other times and places as well. As Gert Saayman shows for South Africa, magistrates were given authority over the death investigation process for much of the 20th century, with district surgeons (or other medical practitioners) becoming involved at their discretion. While forensic pathology saw increasing professionalization in mid-20th century in South Africa, during the oppressive Apartheid regime medicolegal investigations were carried out under the institutional influence and potential interference of the police and state security apparatuses. The first decade of the 21st century saw a reorganization of South Africa’s medicolegal services, which were placed under the authority of provincial health departments (14).

As another case of the shifting relationship between state institutions and medical expertise in forensic death investigation, Zhiyuan Xia examines how police, courts, and procuracies have negotiated their roles and responsibilities in forensic investigation in the decades following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Over time, as Xia shows, police agencies gained preeminent institutional authority over the medicolegal death investigation process with a more circumscribed role for procuracies (mostly involving higher-level reviews of evidence) and disappearance of the forensic services provided by the courts. These shifts took place amid China’s development of significant capabilities in forensic medicine education, the expanded role of medical colleges and universities in providing forensic services, and a rapidly growing and competitive field of market-based forensic service providers (15).

Connected to the different ways in which forensic investigation has been institutionalized is the question of how different groups have asserted or struggled for authority in the forensic context. In a study of the Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory (SCDL) of Northwestern University during the 1930s, Heather Wolffram chronicles the lectures, training activities, and World’s Fair exhibit through which SCDL personnel attempted to assert a new role for laboratory-based forensic services within policing. Despite offering new capabilities in ballistics and other fields, the SCDL’s efforts had ambivalent results: police officials’ resistance to an expanded role for science in law enforcement as well as a lack of finances meant that the SCDL struggled in its outreach efforts up to 1938, when it became part of the Chicago Police Department (17).

In another article addressing the negotiation and politics of professional authority, Jeffrey Jentzen untangles the social, economic, political, technological, and other factors that have challenged the position and status of forensic pathologists in the United States. Despite forensic pathologists’ efforts over the 20th century to develop professional credentials and performance standards and to create organizations to advocate for their interests, they nonetheless work within a crowded forensic landscape in which other actors—coroners, lay death investigators, and a range of other governmental, and societal interest groups—wield considerable authority in the death investigation process. In examining the various factors that have led to this situation, Jentzen provides a detailed assessment of the myriad forces that challenge the authority of medical examiners in the United States today (18).

Christopher Hamlin’s article addresses questions of expert authority in forensic science from another perspective—namely, the question of what counts as authoritative knowledge in a field that is accountable to both legal and scientific norms and evidentiary practices. Hamlin analyzes key texts from three moments in the 20th century in order to explore the ways in which forensic researchers and practitioners in the United States have understood the strengths and weaknesses of their own knowledge and expertise. Viewed from this perspective, recent questions that have arisen about the scientific validity of long-accepted forensic fields (as articulated, e.g., in the 2009 report of the National Research Council of the National Academies, “Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward”) have much earlier precedents. As Hamlin shows, forensic practitioners have been deliberating over—and implicitly debating—what counts as authoritative knowledge in forensics for over a century (19).

Taken as a whole, these articles show the various similarities and differences that pertain to forensic practice as it has been carried out in different times and places. Our hope is that these articles can provide insight into the factors that have promoted the development of forensic disciplines over time while also providing better context with which to understand their continuing challenges and future trajectories.

Given the globalized world of the early-21st century, perspectives that take account of the varied local histories of forensic science as well as their interconnections are especially important.

Daniel Asen and Jeffrey Jentzen