shed the Office of theCoroner. The coroners main job was to keep a record of all criminal affairs inthe county and investigate all deaths that were believed to be a homicide orsuicide. The need for more scientific investigation of unnatural deaths becameevident and the coroners began asking doctors for help. Over time medicalschools started to prepare doctors in that specific field. In 1807, theUniversity of Edinburgh in Scotland instituted a Department of LegalMedicine.Early American colonists Bought the coroner system with them. Asmedical involvement in investigating violent and unexplained deathsincreased, communities began requiring that coroners have specific academictraining. In 1877, Massachusetts replaced the coroners office with the Officeof the Medical Examiner, which was to be headed by a physician. Soon manyother states followed. In 1915 New York City established a program wherethe medical examiner was authorized to investigate all deaths that occurred topeople who appeared to be in good health, that resulted from criminalviolence, accidents, or suicides.Computer technology now allows law enforcement officers o recordfingerprints digitally and to transmit and receive information for quickidentification. Recent developments in technology allows scientists o examinethe deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) or genetic material of blood, hair, skin, orsemen to see if they belong to the victim or the suspected criminal. Usingpolymerase chain reaction (PCR), a lab can clone the DNA from a very smallsample of one of those substances.Forensic science as practiced today is a field of science medicine that useselectron microscopes, lasers, ultraviolet and infrared light, advanced chemical techniques and computerized databanks to analyze and research evidence....
