Medical Detectives

The development of forensic medicine is chronicled through the cases of five great pathologists

The development of forensic pathology in Britain is told here through the lives of five outstanding medical pioneers. Spanning 70 years, their careers and achievements marked major milestones in the development of legal medicine, their work and innovation laying the foundations for modern crime scene investigation (CSI). Bernard Spilsbury, Sydney Smith, and Professors Glaister, Camps, and Simpson were the original expert witnesses. Between them, they performed more than 200,000 post-mortems during their professional careers, establishing crucial elements of murder investigation such as time, place, and cause of death. This forensic quintet featured in many of the notable murder trials of their time, making groundbreaking discoveries in the process.