Origin and history of the Regius Chair of Medical Jurisprudence and Medical Police established in the University of Edinburgh in 1807

Abstract

January 2007 repr2esents the 200th anniversary of the establishment of the Regius Chair of Medical Jurisprudence and Medical Police in the University of Edinburgh, and this was the first Chair of this discipline in Britain. Shortly afterwards, in 1839, a second Chair in this discipline was established. This was in the University of Glasgow. The history of the Edinburgh Chair is particularly curious, and justifies further consideration here. The first individual to provide lectures on this topic in Britain was Andrew Duncan senior (1744–1828) Fig. 1. In 1789, shortly after he had been appointed to the Chair of the Institutes of Medicine (or Physiology), Duncan delivered his first lectures on legal medicine and public health. It has been suggested that this was because he was particularly disturbed by the unsatisfactory and contradictory ‘‘expert’’ testimonies that had been given before the Donellan murder trial, held at the Assizes in Warwick. By 1791, he delivered a series of weekly lectures for his medical class on this discipline, and this was associated with the publication of his Heads of Lectures on Medical Jurisprudence. From 1801, he also delivered a series of extra-academical lectures on medical jurisprudence during the winter months, and a summer series of lectures on Saturday mornings on medical police. He was particularly widely travelled on the Continent, and was familiar with many of the subjects taught in European Medical Schools at that time. One of these subjects was ‘‘medical jurisprudence and medical police’’. This had been taught on the Continent for a number of years, although how the term ‘‘medical police’’ was interpreted