All it requires to understand what forensic medicine is to watch people waiting outside a hospital morgue. There will be policemen, sometimes magistrates and curious onlookers. Only a few realise ...

Ted Crow writes the cartoon; you supply the caption. Email your caption for this cartoon to [email protected].

while 16th-century Europe saw medical practitioners making further contributions to forensic medicine. By the 17th century, forensic science had begun to evolve into an important area of study.

Based on Deborah Blum’s 2010 book “The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York,” it is divided into toxin-specific “chapters,” (cyanide ...