Sir William Brooke O' Shaughnessy, F. R. S. (1809-1889) Anglo-Indian forensic chemist

Abstract

The origins of forensic chemistry are to be found in the practice of A forensic medicine in past centuries. When one considers the evolution of the ancient professions of law and medicine it is obvious that some interaction had to occur in the areas of murder, suicide, and public health. Since poisons could be involved, it is not surprising that early medico-legal records reveal that physicians had to be acquainted with the toxicological aspects of arsenic, mercury, lead and copper and plant poisons such as opium and hemlock (1). The pace of legal codification and medical discovery increased markedly in the sixteenth century. In the latter half of that century the medical men on the Continent began regarding forensic medicine as a speciality, as evidenced by the appearance of publications and the initiation of the first systematic instruction in the subject. The seventeenth century witnessed interest and understanding of the field. Germany was the dominant country in this expansion, followed by France and Italy, with Great Britain registering little impact. Some scattered and generally unsatisfactory beginnings to eliminate this last deficiency appeared in the late eighteenth century (2). The turn of the new century saw a significant advance in the establishment of the first chair of medical jurisprudence at the University of Edinburgh in 1807, occupied initially by Andrew Duncan (1744—1828). W ith the foundation of this professorship British forensic medicine fairly blossomed and entered the mainstream of the study alongside the Continental countries. By the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century every medical student in Great Britain had access to a course in the forensic applications of his field either through a university professor or the extra-mural practitioners of this subject.