Professional Documents
Culture Documents
FORENSIC MEDICINE
MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE
- performed autopsy to Julius Caesar (100-44 B.C.) He found out the Julius
Caesar suffered 23 wounds and only one penetrated the chest cavity.
Justinian (483-565 A.D.)
- mention that a physician is not an ordinary witness.
The first textbook in legal medicine was included in the Constituto
Criminalis Carolina which promulgated in 1532 during the reign of Emperor
Charles V in Germany.
Pope Innocent III (1209)
- issued an edict for the appointment of doctors to the courts for the
determination of the nature of wounds.
In China, Hsi Yuan Lu (Instructions to Coroner) was published. It is
a five volume book dealing with inquest, criminal abortion, infanticide, signs of
death, assault, suicide, hanging, strangling, drowning, burning, poisoning and
antidotes and examination of the dead.
Paulus Zacchias (1584-1659)
- Father of Forensic Medicine
- Papal physician
- published Questiones Medico-legales which dealt with the legal aspects of
wounds and the first chapter dealt with the detection of secret homicide.
Orfila (1787-1853)
- introduced chemical methods in toxicology.
- mentioned mineral, vegetable and animal poison in relation with physiology,
pathology and legal medicine in Traite des Poison.
- considered as the founder of modern toxicology.
IN THE PHILIPPINES
Dr. Rafael Genard y Mas, Chief Army Physician
-
Created the Department of Legal Medicine & Ethics in 1919 with Dr. Sixto
delos Angeles as the Chief.
1043
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Medico-Legal Section was made an integral part of the Division with Dr.
Gregorio T. Lantin as the Chief.
On June 18, 1949, R.A. 409 which was later on amended by R.A. 1934
provides (Sec. 38) for the creation of the Office of the Medical Examiners and
Criminal Investigation Laboratory under the Police Department of the City of
Manila.
Dr. Pedro Solis
-
His book Legal Medicine contains the most extensive treatise and
teaching in Philippine Legal Medicine.
MEDICAL EVIDENCE
Evidence is the means, sanctioned by the Rules of Court, of ascertaining in a
judicial proceeding the truth respecting a matter of fact. If the means employed
to prove a fact is medical in nature then it becomes a medical evidence.
TYPES OF MEDICAL EVIDENCE
- it is and evidence that made known or addressed to the senses of the court.
The probative value of real evidence is the best and highest form of proof.
Testimonial Evidence
Experimental Evidence
Documentary Evidence
- a written evidence presented to the court by the expect witness about the
subject matter in dispute.
Medical Documentary Evidence may be in form of:
A. Medical certification or report
1. Physical Exam report
2. Autopsy report
3. Exhumation report
4. Death certificate
5. Birth certificate
B. Medical Expert Opinion
- a physician on account of his training and expertise can give his own
opinion on a set of medical facts.
C. Deposition
- is a written record of evidence given orally and transcribed in writing for of
questions by the interrogation and the answers of his deponent and signed by the
latter.
Physical Evidence
- these are articles and materials which are necessary in crime investigation
and detection, this will aid in establishing the identities of the criminal and the
circumstances surrounding the commission of the crime.
KINDS OF EVIDENCE NECESSARY FOR CONVICTION
1. Direct Evidence that which proves the fact in dispute without the aid of
any inference or presumption. The evidence presented corresponds to the
precise or actual point at issue.
2. Circumstantial Evidence the proof of fact or facts from which, taken either
singly of collectively, the existence of a particular fact in dispute may be
inferred as a necessary or probable cause.