SCIENCE AND CRIME

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22525, 16 September 1936, Page 18

SCIENCE AND CRIME

MEDICO-LEGAL RESEARCH SUGGESTION IN LONDON [from our own correspondent] LONDON, August 26 A unanimous recommendation that a medico-legal institute should be established in London —preferably as a school of the University of London in the Faculty of Medicine —is made in a report issued by the advisory committee on the Scientific Investigation of Crime. The committee says the extent to which such an instituto could participate in the instruction of undergraduates should be explored, but it points out that it would not be possible for a medical student to obtain the re- N quisite knowledge and experience in the time at his disposal, and that the main function of the institute would, therefore, be to -provide a post-graduate course of training in forensic medicine. The institute should also provide courses of instruction foif law students, police surgeons, and coroners. It should be equipped to undertake a substantial amount of routine work, and should shave ample opportunities for conducting post-mortem examinations. It would also become a centre for research in the medico-legal sphere.,. The committee submitted last November an interim report, recommending augmentations of the scientific staff at the Laboratory for the Scientific Investigation of Crime, at Hendon,' and in this further report it expresses its conviction that the laboratory has been established on sound lines, and that the organisation within the police service of a comprehensive laboratory system for the purpose of bringing the resources of science to bear upon the investigation of crime is a development of immense value which should be pressed forward without delay.