definition- deals with the application of medical knowledge towards administration of justice in a court of law.
Synonym- Legal medicine ( Europe and US)

History

History of the subject is the ‘ key to the past, explanation of the present and/or signpost for the future’.

• Development of medicine can be considered as old as mankind.
• Law-medicine problems are found in the written records in Egypt, Babylon, India and China dating back 4000 to 3000 B.C.
  

• One of the first instances when science was used for the detection of crime was when the Greek scientist Archimedes (287-212 B.C.) found out an interesting way to detect the amount of silver used as an adulterant in a gold crown. The king of Syracuse, Hieron II was suspicious about the purity of gold in his crown, and he instructed his court scientist Archimedes to find out a way to detect the adulteration without in any way destroying the crown. Archimedes while taking his bath discovered quite serendipitously that all substances on immersion displace an amount of water equal to their volume, and the weight of the immersed object consequently decreases by that amount. This is known even today as "the principle of buoyancy" or the "Archimedes' principle". By cleverly applying that principle Archimedes could show that the gold crown indeed had been adulterated with silver, and consequently the goldsmith was executed. This is perhaps the first instance when forensic science was used resulting in the execution of a criminal.
  

• A Chinese Materi Medica of about 3000BC gives information on poisons.
• The Code of Hammurabi, King of Babylon (about 2200 BC), is the oldest known medico-legal code.
• Hippocrates (460 to 377 BC), The “Father Of Western Medicine” was born and practiced in Greece, discussed the lethality of wounds. His contribution to Medical Ethics is by far his greatest in our field.
  

• First medico-legal autopsy was done by Bartolomeo De Varignana in Bologna(Italy) in 1302.
• The first book on forensic medicine was published in 1602 by an Italian Physician, Fortunato Fedele.
• Paulus Zacchias is considered the Father of Legal Medicine as well as Father of Forensic Psychiatry.
• Founder of modern toxicology- Orfila(France).
  

Terms

• Forensic Science
  The term Forensic Science means the application of the knowledge of science for the purposes of law and justice. The term includes the application of all sciences such as physics, chemistry, biology and so on.

• Clinical forensic medicine:- The term Clinical Forensic Medicine involves an application of clinical methods for the administration of justice.
  For instance, when a live rape victim is examined for evidence of rape and associated injuries, it involves a knowledge of clinical methods so such an examination is covered under Clinical Forensic Medicine. Similarly examination of a battered baby (who is still alive) would be covered under clinical forensic medicine. Clinical forensic medicine is a subset of forensic medicine.

• Forensic pathology
  - deals with the study and application of the effects of violence or unnatural disease in its various forms in or on the human body, in determining the cause and manner of death in case of violence, suspicious, unexplained, unexpected, sudden and medically unattended death.

• Forensic psychiatry
  - It is the application of the knowledge of psychiatry for the administration of justice.

• Forensic toxicology
  -deals with the medical and legal aspects of the harmful effects of chemicals on human beings.

• Medical ethics
  - deals with the moral principles which should guide members of the medical profession in their dealings with each other, their patients and the state.

• Medical etiquette
  - deals with the conventional laws of courtesy observed between members of the medical profession. A doctor should behave with his colleagues as he would have them behave with himself.