Falls from heights represent the third most common cause of accidental death in the United States.
-National Safety Council. Accidental Facts, 1985 Chicago. National Safety Council, 1985 (Quoted in the paper "The Investigation of Fatal Falls and Jumps from Heights in Maryland (1987-1992)" by Ling Li and John E. Smialek. American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology 15(4):295-299, 1994)
Morphological measurements are by no means infallible indicators of chronological age.
-Bernard Knight (Forensic Pathology, 2nd Edition, page 444)
The time of appearance of ossification centers (in a foetus) is no longer as uniform as once thought.
-Bernard Knight (Forensic Pathology, 2nd Edition, page 444)
That's how I feel about the skeletons in my laboratory. These have tales to tell us, even though they are dead. It is up to me, the forensic anthropologist, to catch their mute cries and whispers, and to interpret them for the living, as long as I am able.
-William R. Maples (1937-1997), the famous Forensic Anthropologist, in his book "Dead Men do tell tales" at page 280 (published by Doubleday, New York, 1994)
For me, every day is Halloween.
-William R. Maples in his book "Dead Men do tell tales" at page 2
It has been said that pen is mightier than the sword.. .. if used correctly, so is the pencil.. .
-Karen T. Taylor in her book "Forensic Art and Illustration", CRC Press 2001, at page 561
A cartridge case at the scene of offence could prove as incriminating as if the murderer had left his visiting card!
-Sir Sydney Smith
Second only to motor vehicles as instruments of death, firearms will kill more than 32,000 Americans this year.
-(National Research Council 1985: Reproduced in "Gunshot Wounds - Pathophysiology and Management" by Kenneth G. Swan & Roy C. Swan. 2nd Edition, 1989, Yearbook Medical Publishers Inc. Chicago, at page ix)
Gunshot wounds are now becoming almost a distinct branch of surgery
-(J.A. Hunter in "Treatise on the Blood, inflammation and Gunshot wounds: London, G. Nicol, 1794: Reproduced in "Gunshot Wounds - Pathophysiology and Management" by Kenneth G. Swan & Roy C. Swan. 2nd Edition, 1989, Yearbook Medical Publishers Inc. Chicago, at page 1)
We are aware of no report of a penetrating wound of the abdomen, during pregnancy, not involving the uterus
-(Dyer I, Barclay D: Accidental Trauma complicating pregnancy and delivery. Am. J. Obstet. Gynec. 1962; 83: 907)
Only a man who has a pistol needs it.
-An old saying
My wife yes; My dog maybe; My gun never!
-Bumper Sticker (Quoted in "Gunshot Wounds", 2nd Edition, by Vincent J. M. Di Maio, on page 1)
There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at without result.
-Winston Churchill (Quoted in "Gunshot Wounds", 2nd Edition, by Vincent J. M. Di Maio, on page 65)
God created men equal. Sam Colt made 'em equal.
-Anonymous (Quoted in "Gunshot Wounds", 2nd Edition, by Vincent J. M. Di Maio, on page 123)
The U.S. Exports Coca Cola; Japan exports Sony; Russia exports Kalashnikovs.
-Anonymous (Quoted in "Gunshot Wounds", 2nd Edition, by Vincent J. M. Di Maio, on page 167)
Is there life after death? Trespass and find out.
-Bumper Sticker (Quoted in "Gunshot Wounds", 2nd Edition, by Vincent J. M. Di Maio, on page 253)
This property is protected by Smith & Wesson.
-Bumper Sticker (Quoted in "Gunshot Wounds", 2nd Edition, by Vincent J. M. Di Maio, on page 253)
It is always hazardous to conclude that a person could not have done some rational act after receiving gunshot wounds in vital organs.
-LeMoyne Snyder in his book "Homicide Investigation", (Third Edition, May 1977) Published by Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, Illinois, USA, on page 139, in chapter 7 entitled "Homicide due to Gunshot Wounds"
You will acquire a deep understanding of that ancient Christian moral principle, as applied to aimed fire,"It is better to give than to receive"
George Prosser, Black Politics, 1968 (quoted at the beginning of the book "Armed and Dangerous - A writer's guide to weapons" by Michael Newton, Writer's Digest Books, Ohio, 1990)
There is nothing wrong with shooting, as long as the right people get shot.
-"Dirty Harry" Callahan (quoted at the beginning of the book "Armed and Dangerous - A writer's guide to weapons" by Michael Newton, Writer's Digest Books, Ohio, 1990)
Whatever happens, we have got,
The Maxim gun and they have not.
-A popular jingle quite popular with the imperialists in the late 19th and early 20th Century. (Quoted by Isaac Asimov in "Asimov's New Guide to Science", Penguin Books 1987, page 495)
(N.B. In the 1860s the American Inventor Richard Gatling produced the first machine gun. This was improved upon in the 1880s by another American inventor Hiram Stevens Maxim in 1880s. These guns were respectively called the Gatling gun and the Maxim gun. The Gatling gun also gave rise to the slang gat for gun. These guns gave tremendous advantage to the Imperialists over Africans and Asians. The word "they" in the jingle refers to these Africans and Asians.)
'Who saw him die?'
'I', said the fly
'With my little eye,
I saw him die.'
-Anon., 'Who killed Cock Robin' (quoted by Zakaria Erzinçlioglu in his book "Maggots, Murder and Men - Memories and Reflections of a Forensic Entomologist" Harley Books, England 2000, on page 13)
In the midst of all this decay, death calls in reinforcements.
-Heather Pringle in her book "The Mummy Congress - Science, Obsession, and the Everlasting Dead", Theia, New York, 2001, page 39
Descriptions of an abnormal fluidity of blood seen at autopsy in asphyxial deaths are part of forensic mythology and can be dismissed with little discussion.
-Bernard Knight (Forensic Pathology, 2nd Edition, 1996, page 350)
Persistent fluidity of the blood likely relates to inhibition of the coagulation process due to some unknown mechanism.
-Michael S. Pollanen in his book "Forensic Diatomology and drowning", Elsevier, 1998 at page 26
(N.B. Quotes 1 and 2 are antethetical in nature - and both are from contemporary books - meaning thereby that this controversy is far from over. For other similar forensic controversies, see quotes on "Petechial haemorrhages" and "Hydrostatic Test")
Descriptions and photographs of air segments in the cerebral veins are part of the mythology of forensic pathology, handed on uncritically from one book and one author to another.
-Bernard Knight (Forensic Pathology, 2nd Edition, page 342 and 433)
(N.B. Knight tells us through this pithy quote that air-embolism can not be, and should not, be diagnosed by seeing air bubbles in cortical veins, because there is simply no way, air bubbles could travel upstream!)
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
-Through the Looking Glass (Cited in "Recent Advances in Forensic Pathology" edited by Francis E. Camps, J.& A. Churchill Ltd., 1969, on page 137, in Chapter 7 entitled "Odontology: its Forensic Applications")
Dormouse to the expanding Alice : "I wish you wouldn't squeeze so" said the Dormouse who was sitting next to her. "I can hardly breathe." "I can't help it" said Alice very meekly, "I'm growing." "You've no right to grow here" said the Dormouse.
"Don't talk nonsense," said Alice more boldly: "you know you're growing too."Yes, but I grow at a reasonable pace," said the Dormouse. "Not in that ridiculous fashion."
- Cited in Lovat LS. The prosecution view of dental evidence. J Forensic Sci Soc. 1974 Jul;14(3):253-8. This quote – my favorite – is very cleverly cited by Lovat to show how sometimes science can grow at a much faster rate that associated law. In this very pertinent allegory, while Alice refers to the fast growing science of forensic odontostomatology, the Dormouse refers to “not so fast growing” law, which may have difficulties accepting dental evidence.
The skin and bones tell a story which the child is either too young or too frightened to tell.
-Johnson, Cameron and Camps (Quoted in Bernard Knight's Forensic Pathology, 2nd Edition, page 458)
It is difficult for me to evaluate how a single skull is classified as white, or Negro, or Mongoloid.
-W.M.Krogman, in his "The Human Skeleton in Forensic Medicine" (1962), at page 195
As those who study them have come to learn, bones make good witnesses - although they speak softly, they never lie and they never forget.
-Dr. Clyde Collins Snow, forensic anthropologist (Quoted in "The Bone Detectives" by Donna M. Jackson at the front page)
He is the man who furnishes Perry Mason with so many authentic facts.
-Erle Stanley Gardner on Professor John Glaister II (1892-1971), Professor of Forensic Medicine at Glasgow University, Scotland (Quoted in "The Bedside Book of Murder" by Richard & Molly Whittington-Egan, at page 171)
Just the mention of his name was enough to send shudders through opposing counsel.
-Colin Evans on Edward O. Heinrich (1881-1953) in his book "The Casebook of Forensic Detection" John Wiley & Sons 1996, page 301
(N.B. Edward Oscar Heinrich was one of the most remarkable figures in the history of US Jurisprudence. Epithets commonly ascribed to him are "The American Sherlock Holmes" and "The Edison of Crime Detection")
How the hell did he know?
-A defendant heard to whisper, after Lee had methodically walked the court through each step the killer took during the murders.
(N.B. Lee used blood spatter and other other evidence to do this. This anecdote appears in "Cracking Cases" by Henry C. Lee with Thomas W. O'Neil, Prometheus books, 2002, page 9)
I love to enter the crime scene from the kitchen.
-This is what Noguchi said, when interviewed in November 1986 by Douglas Stein. For full story please visit http://www.omnimag.com/index.html
(Readers may want to know why. He follows up the above statement with this: People's minute-to-minute movements are registered here. I routinely open the refrigerator to get people's life-styles: the type of food they like, where they buy, how much they pay, how they wrap. In one homicide I investigated, the homeowner returned early, surprising the burglar, so the burglary ended in murder. But the burglar was hungry, so he had a bite to eat before leaving. We found distinct teeth marks in the cheese!")
He stood for forensic pathology as Hobbs stood for cricket or Dempsey for boxing or Capablanca for chess.
-Edgar Lustgarten on Sir Bernard Henry Spilsbury (1877-1947), probably the greatest Forensic Pathologist, the English world has seen (Quoted in "The Bedside Book of Murder" by Richard & Molly Whittington-Egan, at page 164)
He could achieve single-handed all the legal consequences of homicide - arrest, prosecution, conviction and final post-mortem - requiring only the brief assistance of the hangman.
-Dr. Richard Gordon on Sir Bernard Henry Spilsbury (1877-1947) (Quoted in "The Bedside Book of Murder" by Richard & Molly Whittington-Egan, at page 164)
A simple newspaper report of Sir Bernard's attendance at a mortuary or churchyard is enough to condemn an accused man to death, even before committal proceedings have begun.
-Dr. Patrick Brontë, Spilsbury's bitter professional rival (this quote appears on page 25 in the article "Is Sir Bernard Spilsbury Dead?" in "Crime Investigation: Art or Science?", edited by Alistair R. Brownlie. Scottish Academic Press, Edinburgh 1984)
When did you last examine a live patient Sir Bernard?
-A young chirrupy young barrister to Sir Bernard Henry Spilsbury in the court room (Quoted in "The Bedside Book of Murder" by Richard & Molly Whittington-Egan, at page 164)
Spilsbury's statements in the witness box were often based upon insufficient material, and a lack of clinical experience.
-Professor Michael A. Green on page 24 in the article "Is Sir Bernard Spilsbury Dead?" in "Crime Investigation: Art or Science?", edited by Alistair R. Brownlie. Scottish Academic Press, Edinburgh 1984
When Sir Bernard speaks as a pathologist, I respect his opinion. When he gives a view on an obstetric matter, I hold him in contempt.
-Alec Boune, the distinguished gynaecologist called by the defence in a case in which Spilsbury appeared from the other side (this quote appears on page 24 in the article "Is Sir Bernard Spilsbury Dead?" in "Crime Investigation: Art or Science?", edited by Alistair R. Brownlie. Scottish Academic Press, Edinburgh 1984)
I have never claimed to be God - but merely his locum on his weekends off.
-Bernard Spilsbury (this quote appears on page 25 in the article "Is Sir Bernard Spilsbury Dead?" in "Crime Investigation: Art or Science?", edited by Alistair R. Brownlie. Scottish Academic Press, Edinburgh 1984)
Rudolph Ludwig Karl Virchow, where are you now that we need you?
-Leon Eisenberg, 1984 (Quoted in "The Autopsy-Medical Practice and Public Policy" by Rolla B. Hill and Robert E. Anderson; Butterworths 1988, page 251)
The commonest causes of death amongst forensic pathologists are alcohol related!
-Contributed by Dr. Gyan Fernando
So why the dead body, the often smelly morgue, exhumation, lust and violence, the inconvenience of calls to derelict premises, dells in Epping Forest, ponds, prostitutes' bedrooms at odd hours; of sudden challenge, hard duels with lawyers, pompous old judges and obtuse juries? Why?
-Professor Keith Simpson, asking himself the question "Why he chose Forensic Pathology despite being the best student in his medical career" (This interesting quote appears in his autobiography "Forty Years of Murder", Grafton Books 1978, at page 9)
(N.B. Professor Keith Simpson follows it up with this answer: Well, few doctors can enjoy a more exciting life, such a challenge to be constantly on the qui vive, or should it be the qui meure?)
As Stethoscope and BP Instruments are status symbols of a physician and Surgeon, so are Lens and Measuring tape to an Autopsy Surgeon.
-Professor Heeresh Chandra (Quoted in his site)
An operation during life is attended by pain and is for the benefit of the individuals. An operation after death is free from pain and is for the benefit of humanity.
-Braouardel & Jasolin (Quoted by Professor Heeresh Chandra in his site)
A picture tells a thousand words.
-An old adage (quoted in Chapter 9 of the book "Craniofacial Identification in Forensic Medicine". The chapter is on "Crime Scene Photography")
A picture is worth a thousand words. However, few investigators may realize that 'a picture may also contain a thousand measurements'.
-John H. Garstang, in chapter 6 entitled "Aircraft Explosive Sabotage Investigation" page 153, in the book "Forensic Investigation of Explosions" edited by Alexander Beveridge, Taylaor & Francis, 1998
(N.B. There is a veiled reference here to photogrammetry, a technique which is increasingly being used in forensic investigations now. Photogrammetry is the art, science and technology of obtaining reliable information about physical objects and the environment through processes of recording, measuring and interpreting photographic images and patterns of electromagnetic radiant energy and other phenomena.)
A good photograph is tantamount to stopping the clock.
-unknown (quoted on page 35 in Chapter 3 (fire investigation) of the book "Forensic Engineering" by Kenneth L. Carper (CRC Press 1998))
".. . the Tories have compelled me to do this. They follow and persecute me wherever I go and have entirely destroyed my peace of mind.. .,"
-Daniel M'Naughten 1843 (quoted in "Forensic pharmacology - Medicines, Mayhem, and Malpractice" by R.E. Ferner, Oxford University Press, 1996, page 66)
(N.B. Daniel M'Naughten was a mentally disturbed person - a Scotsman from Glasgow. He had a delusion of persecution, that Tories were trying to kill him. In his time Sir Robert Peel was the Prime Minister of Britain - from December 1834 till March 1835, and then again from September 1841 till July 1846. On 20th January 1843, Daniel was seen loitering in Whitehall Gardens, and followed Mr. Edward Drummond, the private secretary of Sir Robert Peel, from Sir Robert Peel's house till a street in Charing Cross, where he shot him. He believed that Mr. Edward Drummond was the Prime Minister himself. Mr. Drummond lingered, in great pain, until January 25th, when he died. M'Naughten was brought to trial on 3rd March, 1843 at the Old Bailey before Chief Justice Tindal, and two other Queen's bench judges, Williams and Coleridge. It was at this historic trial that the famous "insanity defense" emerged, known to this day as the "M'Naughten rule".)
We do not believe that anyone could be insane who wanted to murder a Conservative Prime Minister.
-A young Queen Victoria (1840-1901) referring to Daniel M'Naughten (see above for details). The quote appears in "If A Man Be Mad - A scientist testifies against the insanity defense" by David T. Lykken. Lykken, who is a professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Minnesota, says that this was an immortal quip by Queen Victoria, not otherwise known for her wit.
When you speak to God it's called praying; but when God speaks to you it's called schizophrenia.
-A West German observer comment on the psychiatric evidence given during the Yorkshire Ripper's Trial (quoted in "Science Against Crime", Published by Marshall Cavendish, 1982, on page 175)
(N. B. A brief note may be appropriate here. The Yorkshire Ripper or Peter Sutcliffe killed 13 women in Leeds and adjoining areas between October 1975 and November 1980. At his trial, which began May 1981, he said he had heard the voice of God instructing him to kill.)
Such terms as 'mental disease and mental defect' give expert pyshiatric witnesses a blank check.
-Justice Kaufman criticizing the Durham test
(N. B. A brief note might well be in order here. In Durham vs. United States, 1954, Justice David L. Bazelon abandoned the M'Naghten criteria, and used a new criterion known as the Durham test, which was perpetually in criticism. It was finally overturned by Justice Bazelon himself in 1972 in United States vs. Brawner. The Durham rule stated that "an accused is not criminally responsible if his unlawful act was the product of mental disease or defect".)
The psychiatrists spun sticky webs of pseudoscientific jargon, and in those webs the concept of justice, like a moth, fluttered feebly and was trapped.
-A prominent columinst, after the 1982 verdict of a District of Columbia jury, which found John W. Hinckley, Jr., the would-be assassin of President Ronald Reagan, not guilty by reason of insanity (quoted in Kaplan and Sadock's Synopsis of Psychiatry - Behavioral Sciences/Clinical Psychiatry, eighth edition 1998, by Harold I. Kaplan, M.D. and Benjamin J. Sadock, M.D. Page 1316)
Had M'Naghten been tried under M'Naghten's rules in any American court, there would have been a battle of the "experts" and M'Naghten would surely have been found legally sane and would have been found guilty as charged.
-Matthew Brody, M.D., Acting Chief, Psychiatry, Brooklyn Jewish Hospital and Medical Center, testifying in 1965, before a joint legislative commission of the penal law and criminal code. This commission recommended some alteration of the M'Naghten Rule. This quote is reproduced by Matthew Brody himself in his paper entitled "Trial of Daniel M'Naghten" published in March 1982 issue of "New York State Journal of Medicine". This quote appears on page 381
A man might say that he picked a pocket from some uncontrollable impulse, and in that case the law would have an uncontrollable impulse to punish him for it.
- Baron Alderson, the presiding judge deciding on the fate of Robert Pate, who went on trial in 1850 for the high misdemeanor of striking Queen Victoria with his walking stick. Pate's counsel had claimed irresistible impulse as a defence. The quote appears in "If A Man Be Mad - A scientist testifies against the insanity defense" by David T. Lykken.
Now we see through a glass darkly.
-I Corinthians 13 (Cited in "Recent Advances in Forensic Pathology" edited by Francis E. Camps, J.& A. Churchill Ltd., 1969, on page 149, in Chapter 8 entitled "Radiology and its forensic application")
Forensic Science is the link between the criminal and the crime.
-Ken Goddard, Wildlife Forensics, (quoted in Natur (German) Nov. 1990)
Forensic Science can be defined as the application of the laws of nature to the laws of man.
-Michael J. Camp, (quoted by P. ChandraSekharan in "Indian Journal of Forensic Sciences" Vol 5, April 1991, No. 2, p. 37)
Forensic Science is used to predict not the future but the past.
-Henry C. Lee (Reproduced in "Forensic Radiology" by B.G. Brogdon, at page 279)
(N.B. The book goes on to say,"Nowhere in Forensic Radiology is Dr. Lee's provocative aphorism less applicable than in the field of abuse. Here lies the opportunity to go beyond the limits of the necropsy 'where death delights to help the living'.")
Legal medicine has been described as the key to the past, the explanation to the present, and, in some measure, as a signpost to the future.
-Professor J. Malcolm Cameron, in his Presidential address to the British Academy of Forensic Sciences, also published in "Medicine, Science and the Law" (1980), Vol 20, No. 1, in the paper entitled "The Medico-legal Expert - Past, Present and Future" page 3
There is only one path to the mastery of Forensic Medicine, and that is an extensive practical experience.
-Harvey LittleJohn
She's cold
Her blood is settled and her joints are stiff,
Life and these lips have long been separated,
Death lies on her like an untimely frost,
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field
-William Shakespeare
Most sudden deaths are of cardiac origin.
-Fortunatus Fidelis (1598)
It will never be possible to eliminate all chance of error or misjudgement, but the Forensic Science Service strives to do the greatest good for the greatest number, for the greatest part of time.
-Professor Michael Green, University of Sheffield (quoted in "The Modern Sherlock Holmes- An Introduction to Forensic Science Today" by Judy Williams, at page 12)
The science of Forensic Medicine turns the clock back. It relivens the dead.
-R.D. Rikhari (Editor "Invention Intelligence". Sent on July 14, 2000. His original quote was "Your profession turns the clock back. It relivens the dead")
Forensic medicine is like an illegitimate child of health and home departments. We belong to both, but none belong to us. We offer our services to both, we are answerable to both, but we receive nothing from either. I feel that it is high time that our paternity be ascertained and we be adopted by our rightful parentage.
-Professor L. Fimate, President of the Indian Academy of Forensic Medicine (IAFM), in his inaugural speech on the occasion of XXII Annual Conference of The Indian Academy Of Forensic Medicine, Jaipur, India, 5 - 7 January 2001
Many people ask me why I chose Forensic Medicine as a career, and I tell them that it is because a forensic man gets the honor of being called when the top doctors have failed!
-Anil Aggrawal, Professor of Forensic Medicine, Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi-110002, India
There is no such thing as 'forensic science'; instead it is a collection of scientific techniques and principles that are begged and borrowed from 'real' sciences such as chemistry, biology, physics, medicine and mathematics.
-A general saying by some experts (cited in the Introduction to "Encyclopedia of Forensic Sciences" edited by Jay A. Siegel, Pekka J. Saukko and Geoffrey C. Knupfer. 2000 Academic Press.)
The 'sciences' of fingerprints, firearms and toolmarks and questioned documents are the only real forensic sciences; all the rest of it is on loan from the classical hard sciences.
-Another general saying (cited in the Introduction of "Encyclopedia of Forensic Sciences" edited by Jay A. Siegel, Pekka J. Saukko and Geoffrey C. Knupfer. 2000 Academic Press.)
It has always been a source of amazement to me, how a subject as inherently fascinating as Forensic Medicine, can be presented in a dull and uninteresting manner as is the case with some of the existing books on the subject.
-Dr. V.V.Pillay, in the preface of the book "MKR Krishnan's Handbook of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology", Paras Publishing, 12th Edition, 2001
Francis Galton's arrival on Henry Fauld's stage was like the antihero's entrance in a tragically ending play.
-Colin Beavan, in "Fingerprints - The origins of crime detection and the murder case that launched forensic science", Hyperion, New York, 2001, page 94
He was notorious for using his status against those with fewer advantages.
-Colin Beavan, in "Fingerprints - The origins of crime detection and the murder case that launched forensic science", Hyperion, New York, 2001, page 94
Those who dared to oppose him learned that he was, by all accounts, that dangerous breed of dog who bites before even bothering to growl.
-Colin Beavan, in "Fingerprints - The origins of crime detection and the murder case that launched forensic science", Hyperion, New York, 2001, page 94