Lectures on medical jurisprudence were given at the University of Edinburgh by A. Duncan, Sr., at least as early as 1792.[99] The title of Professor of Medical Jurisprudence in a British university was conferred for the first time, however, upon A. Duncan, Jr., at the University of Edinburgh in 1806.[100]
The first English work on medical jurisprudence worthy of consideration is the medical classic known as Percival’s “Medical Ethics.” This was first published in 1803, and contains in its fourth chapter an admirable epitome of legal medicine.[101] A more elaborate work, based very largely, however, upon the writings of continental authors, was published by G. E. Male in 1816.[102] In 1821 Professor John Gordon Smith published the first systematic treatise on forensic medicine,[103] and was one of the first in Great Britain to show the importance of the subject.
Two years later, in 1823, appeared the elaborate and scholarly work of Dr. Paris and Mr. Fonblanque, the first in the English language in whose authorship members of the medical and legal professions were associated.[104] In 1831, Prof. Michael Ryan published the first edition of his “Manual of Medical Jurisprudence” from the memoranda of his lectures on the subject in the Westminster School of Medicine.[105] A similar work was published by Professor T. S. Traill, of the University of Edinburgh, in 1836.[106] The awakened interest in medico-legal subjects among the medical profession during the decade 1830-40 is evidenced by the publication in the medical journals of the lectures of A. Amos, in 1830-31; of A. T. Thomson, at the London University, in 1834-35; of H. Graham, at Westminster Hospital, in 1835; of W. Cummin, at the Aldersgate Street School, in 1836-37; and of T. Southwood Smith, at the Webb Street Theatre of Anatomy, in 1837-38.[107]
Among the noteworthy contributions to the science previous to 1850 are the writings of Dease (1808), Haslam (1817),[108] Christison, the successor of Professor Duncan in the University of Edinburgh, and best known as a toxicologist, Forsyth (1829),[109] Chitty (1834),[110] Watson (1837),[111] Brady (1839),[112] Skae (1840),[113] Pagan (1840),[114] and Sampson (1841).[115]
In 1836, Dr. Alfred Swaine Taylor (b. 1806, d. 1880), the first Professor of Medical Jurisprudence in Guy’s Hospital, published his “Elements of Medical Jurisprudence.” This, the most important work upon the subject in the English language, is now in its twelfth English and eleventh American edition. During forty years of devotion to forensic medicine Dr. Taylor also contributed other important works and numerous papers, published for the most part in the Reports of Guy’s Hospital.[116] In 1844, Dr. Wm. A. Guy, Professor of Forensic Medicine in King’s College, published the first edition of his excellent work.[117] In 1858, Fr. Ogston, Professor of Medical Jurisprudence in the University of Aberdeen, published a syllabus and subsequently (1878) a complete report of his lectures.[118] In 1882, C. M. Tidy, Professor of Chemistry and Forensic Medicine in the London Hospital, who had previously (1877) been associated with W. B. Woodman in the authorship of a valuable handbook, began the publication of a more extended work, which was interrupted by his death in 1892.[119]
The first Spanish work on legal medicine was that of Juan Fernandez del Valles, printed in 1796-97.[120] No further contribution to medico-legal literature was furnished by Spain until the appearance in 1834 of the work of Peiro and Rodrigo, which went through four editions in ten years.[121] Ten years later, in 1844, Pedro Mata, Professor of Legal Medicine and Toxicology at Madrid, published the first edition of a work, which in the development of its subsequent editions, has become the most important on the subject in the Spanish language.[122]
The first Portuguese medico-legal treatise was that of Jose Ferreira Borjes, first printed at Paris in 1832.[123]
A posthumously published report of the lectures of Albrecht von Haller was the earliest Swiss work on forensic medicine.[124]