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Class Date: May 6th
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Medicine and the Law
Medicine and the Law
This week we are looking at the life of Frances Glessner Lee, the mother of modern forensic science. Before we get to her amazing life, let’s take a look at some of the events that lead up to our subject for the week:
1789 - United States Marshals are created
The new U.S. Congress created the first Federal law enforcement officers in the Marshals as part of the first Judiciary Act. President George Washington appointed the first 13 Marshals to act as the nation’s law keepers.
1816 - French doctor Rene Laennec invented the stethoscope
The French physician invented an instrument for doctors to listen to hearts and lungs. He used the new tool to support observations he had made during autopsies. He introduced many clinical terms still used today in the examination of the chest.
1838 - Boston creates the first publicly funded police force
The main impetus for the creation of the force came from local merchants, as Boston had grown to a large shipping and commercial center. Merchants had been hiring private security to safeguard their property but they argued for a publicly funded police force for the ‘greater good’, though it seems likely that they argued in large part for the greater good of their own pocketbooks. Other cities soon followed suit and created municipal police forces; New York founded theirs in 1845, Chicago in 1851, and Philadelphia created their force in 1855. By the 1880s, all major cities in the U.S. had municipal police forces. These police forces shared the same basic characteristics:
Supported by public funds and bureaucratically structured
Full time police officers, rather than volunteers or part time payments
Departments had fixed fuels and procedures
Departments were accountable to a central government authority
For many decades, police departments were linked closely to political parties and businessmen. It was no accident that police forces were established as business leaders feared the rise of labor-union organizers, and large waves of immigrants flocked to American cities.
1842 - Ether first used as an anesthetic
Margarethe Schurz founded the first kindergarten (the term deriving from the German
1849 - Elizabeth Blackwell graduates
Dr Crawford Williamson Long was an American surgeon and considered to be the first physician to use inhaled ether as a method of painlessly performing surgery. Though other doctors would later try to lay claim to being the first, Dr. Long was likely the first.
1850 - 1861 - US Marshals enforce Fugitive Slave Law of 1850
US Marshals were charged with enforcing the Act by arresting fugitive people and returning them to the South. If Marshals were found not enforcing the Act, they were subject to severe financial penalties.
1856 - First kindergarten in the U.S. is opened
Margarethe Schurz founded the first kindergarten (the term deriving from the German words for children and garden) in Watertown, Wisconsin. Margarethe was a German immigrant who had learned the principles of kindergarten from its creator, Friederich Frobel. Her sister founded the first kindergarten in London in the 1850s. To read more, click here:
1861 - Louis Pasteur discovered germs cause disease
The Frenchman’s research led to great medical advancements around the world. He discovered that unwanted microorganisms could be destroyed in substances by heating them. He started with wine but later extended it to other spoilable substances, including milk. We take the word ‘pasteurize’ from his name. To read more about his life and discoveries, including vaccines, click here:
1867 - Federal Department of Education was founded
President Andrew Johnson signed legislation to create the first Department of Education. The intent was to collect information about schools across the country. There were concerns that the department would have too much control over local schools, so it was demoted to an Office of Education the next year. The Department would take on a more active role in education in the 1950s, especially after the Soviet launch of Sputnik. As more eyes turned toward the state of education, particularly science, as well as those looking for greater equality across schooling, the Department came to play an important role in setting national standards.
1914 - Panama Canal Opened
The world was desperate to get to the West Coast of North America after the discovery of gold in California in 1848 without sailing around the tip of South America. The United States encouraged Panama’s independence from Columbia and built the Panama Canal, which opened to sea traffic in 1914.
1897 - Aspirin created by German chemist Felix Hoffmann
Trying to find a way to ease his father’s arthritis pain, chemist Hoffmann acetylated salicylic acid, giving us aspirin, widely considered to be one of the most beneficial drugs. He also worked on synthesizing heroin! To read a bit more, click here:
1920 - 19th Amendment is passed
The 19th Amendment granted all female citizens the right to vote in U.S. elections. That same year, the League of Women Voters was formed as a grand ‘experiment’ to help women be informed voters.
1922 - Insulin first used to treat diabetes
14 year old Leonard Thompson was dying of Type 1 diabetes and became the first human to receive an injection of insulin in a Toronto hospital. Within 24 hours, his blood glucose levels were near-normal. The year prior, a surgeon named Frederick Batning, with his assistant Charles Best, figured out how to remove insulin from a dog’s pancreas. They kept another dog suffering from diabetes alive for 70 days (the dog passed when the insulin was gone). Colleagues J.B. Collip and John Macleod developed a more pure form of insulin from cattle. Their work and discoveries have saved millions of lives.
1932 - Franklin D. Roosevelt elected
Roosevelt contracted an illness, most likely polio, in 1921, which resulted in his paralysis from the waist down. After becoming president, Roosevelt helped to found the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which is now known as the March of Dimes. His leadership and advocacy for this issue is one of the reasons his likeness appears on the dime.
1939 - Nazi programs kill tens of thousands of sick and disabled people
Hitler ordered widespread ‘mercy’ killing of the sick and disabled at the beginning of World War II. Eugenic sterilization laws laid the groundwork for the program, code-named Aktion T4. The program was designed to eliminate “life unworthy of life” and murdered somewhere between 75,000 and 250,000 people with intellectual or physical disabilities between 1939 and 1941.
That is where our timeline leaves us for this week! Tune in this week to learn more!
Recommended Reading
Recommended Reading
To read more about this topic, here are some great books to get you started:
For kids:
Forensics for Kids: The Science and History of Crime Solving with 21 Activities for Kids) by Melissa Ross
Forensics for Kids: The Science and History of Crime Solving with 21 Activities for Kids) by Melissa Ross
What kind of science does it take to solve a crime?
Forensics for Kids provides the complete history of forensic science, giving readers a comprehensive understanding of the crime-solving advancements that led to modern forensics. Author Melissa Ross reveals fascinating stories, famous cases, pioneers who led the way, and what forensics might look like in the future.
Twenty-one engaging activities offer readers hands-on experiences with modern forensic methods.
Blood, Bullets, and Bones: The Story of Forensic Science from Sherlock Holmes to DNA by Bridget Heos
Since the introduction of DNA testing, forensic science has been in the forefront of the public’s imagination, thanks especially to popular television shows like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. But forensic analysis has been practiced for thousands of years. Ancient Chinese detectives studied dead bodies for signs of foul play, and in Victorian England, officials used crime scene photography and criminal profiling to investigate the Jack the Ripper murders. In the intervening decades, forensic science has evolved to use the most cutting-edge, innovative techniques and technologies.
In this book, acclaimed author Bridget Heos uses real-life cases to tell the history of modern forensic science, from the first test for arsenic poisoning to fingerprinting, firearm and blood spatter analysis, DNA evidence, and all the important milestones in between. By turns captivating and shocking, Blood, Bullets, and Bones demonstrates the essential role forensic science has played in our criminal justice system.
For adults:
18 Tiny Deaths: The Untold Story of Frances Glessner Lee and the Invention of Modern Forensics by Bruce Goldfarb
The story of the Gilded Age Chicago heiress who revolutionized forensic death investigation. As the mother of forensic science, Frances Glessner Lee is the reason why homicide detectives are a thing. She is responsible for the popularity of forensic science in television shows and pop culture. Long overlooked in the history books, this extremely detailed and thoroughly researched biography will at long last tell the story of the life and contributions of this pioneering woman.
The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death by Corinne May Botz
The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death by Corinne May Botz
The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death offers readers an extraordinary glimpse into the mind of a master criminal investigator
Frances Glessner Lee, a wealthy grandmother, founded the Department of Legal Medicine at Harvard in 1936 and was later appointed captain in the New Hampshire police.
In the 1940s and 1950s she built dollhouse crime scenes based on real cases in order to train detectives to assess visual evidence. Still used in forensic training today, the eighteen Nutshell dioramas, on a scale of 1:12, display an astounding level of detail: pencils write, window shades move, whistles blow, and clues to the crimes are revealed to those who study the scenes carefully.
Corinne May Botz's lush color photographs lure viewers into every crevice of Frances Lee's models and breathe life into these deadly miniatures, which present the dark side of domestic life, unveiling tales of prostitution, alcoholism, and adultery. The accompanying line drawings, specially prepared for this volume, highlight the noteworthy forensic evidence in each case. Botz's introductory essay, which draws on archival research and interviews with Lee's family and police colleagues, presents a captivating portrait of Lee.
Works Cited
Works Cited
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