death investigation systems 37in which they questioned witnesses and empanelled juries to hear evidence
regarding deaths and to make determinations as to how they came about. The
coroner’s inquest continues to persist today, and the office of the British coro-
ner represents one of the oldest continuous judicial agencies in existence.
During its colonial period, England exported much of its culture and
legal system throughout the world, including the American colonies. Not
surprisingly, the office of coroner was a part of this export.2,5 A search of the
archives of the Plymouth Colony^19 reveals multiple references to coroners’
inquests. The governor of Maryland appointed a sheriff-coroner in 1637, and
the duties of the coroner are recorded in the state archives of that period.^5
Another early American coroner was reported to have been appointed by
William Penn. As the nation grew and developed, the office became an
integral component of local governments, responsible for investigation of
death in a particular jurisdiction, though the incumbents were tradition-
ally not physicians. Unfortunately, some coroners developed reputations for
bribery, embezzlement, and lack of integrity as part of the political “spoils”
system, resulting in a relatively low public opinion of the field.^10 As in the
British system, the American coroner was a quasi-judicial figure, and not
a medical professional, so in the absence of adequate medical training and
experience, early coroners applied lay knowledge and common sense to the
problem of death investigation.
Early in the development of the coroner system, the lack of medical
involvement in death investigation was of no consequence. Medical knowl-
edge and science were rudimentary at best, and even physicians viewed dis-
ease and death through superstitious and magical lenses. As no professional
had a better grasp of the causative factors in a death than any other, no
particular educational requirements were necessary or appropriate for the
coroner. Through the centuries this nonmedical coroner system of death
investigation changed little in British jurisdictions and their progeny. But in
E u r o p e , d e v e l o p i n g s c i e n t i fi c a n d m e d i c a l e x p e r t i s e w a s m o r e r e a d i l y b r o u g h t
to bear in death investigation as advances were made in the sciences,2–5,10,16
with the first formal lectures in forensic medicine given at the University
of Leipzig in the middle seventeeth century.2,10 In this way, the continent
was far ahead of the Anglo-Saxon model. There are numerous examples of
cooperation between the medical profession and the law in Europe, and one
such case in point is the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina, a code of law pro-
mulgated in 1553 in Germany. In it, expert medical testimony was required
in cases of murder or traumatic deaths. Even the practice of autopsy exami-
nation (more properly known as the necropsy) was more readily accepted in
Europe than in Britain.^10 The first significant move toward formal studies
in forensic medicine in the British Isles was in Scotland, where a chair of
“medical jurisprudence and police” was established at the University of
Edinburgh in 1806.^17