Forensic medicine first appeared in Germany in the sixteenth century: the Carolina Law promulgated by Charles V in 1532 obliged medical experts (mainly barber-surgeons of the time) to intervene in cases of intentional or involuntary murder of corpses and to impose a penalty proportional to the injuries. In 1536, Francis I of France drafted a decree for the Duke of Brittany, which regulated the beginnings of forensic medicine. [3] In modern times, forensic pathology has been fully recognized as a specialty; It is included in programs, first in surgery and then independently. Luis Hidalgo y Carpio began writing in 1842, the year he published twelve academic articles in the Journal of the Mexican Academy of Medicine. In 1869 he wrote the text Introduction to the Study of Forensic Medicine, a collection and analysis of his experiences as a residency, which was used as a textbook at the National School of Medicine. In 1877 he concluded his essay with the Compendium of Forensic Medicine, a text of great importance for his time, which forms the basis of the subject of the same name, which was taught in 1878. This makes him a pioneer in this field in Mexico and his writings related to study. On May 12, 1879, Luis Hidalgo y Carpio, an eminent Mexican physician of the nineteenth century, whom his contemporaries considered the best forensic doctor of his time, died in Mexico City.[1] As a forerunner of forensic medicine in Mexico, he was also a great disseminator of health knowledge, as he was the founder and editor-in-chief of the Medical Gazette of Mexico. In Roman medicine, there are also rules of jurisprudence on the legitimacy of pregnancies, the protection of slaves, the responsibility of the mentally ill and others. In China, in 1247, for the forensic aspect, there was a treatise entitled „The Compilation of Reparations for Imjustice”, in which wounds were classified according to the instrument that caused them and their severity was determined according to the area of the body affected; His corrected modifications are still used by Chinese coroners. In Colombia, since its foundation on February 3, 1827, the Faculty of Medicine of the National University of Bogotá has included forensic medicine among its chairs, being its first professor, Dr.

José Félix Merizalde, and since then forensic medicine has been taught in the country and currently also in law faculties. In France, forensic medicine in the modern sense of the term was born at the end of the nineteenth century by doctors such as Léon Thoinot, Victor Balthazar, Paul Brouardel, Alexandre Lacassagne or Auguste Ambroise Tardieu. [6] Forensic medicine entered the academic sphere in 1877 with the election of Tardieu as lecturer in practical forensic medicine at the Faculty of Medicine in Paris. [7] Forensic medicine comprises the following sub-disciplines, which are raised from a purely descriptive point of view (since nothing is foreign to forensic medicine and contributes everything to its ends): Commonly called forensic medicine (forum: because in ancient times it was found in forums or courts where this discipline was practiced), There are currently two schools: the Latin school, where forensic doctors are trained, and the Anglo-Saxon school, where forensic doctors are trained. On the day of his death, his colleagues and relatives organized a funeral evening in the auditorium of the Academy of Medicine, of which he was president in 1867. The tribute was attended by important personalities and authorities of the time, who recognized the work of Hidalgo y Carpio, who invited his students to be ideal doctors and dedicated his life to public health and medicine with humility, generosity and solidarity. His contributions to the development and dissemination of national and international medicine constitute his greatest legacy as a pioneer in the democratization of health. At the end of the Middle Ages, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, forensic practices acquired remarkable advances, highlighting issues related to the study of the corpse, mainly of an anatomical nature, and in some cases knowing the cause of death; Thus, in 1374, the faculty of Montpellier obtained the appropriate authorization to perform autopsies on corpses. If we go back in history, we will find interesting dates from its beginnings to its constitution as a science, because the year 1700 BC are the oldest dates of medical law, established in the „Code of Hammurabi” in this code the payment of fees that depended on the social position of the patient. Compensation for injuries was also recorded, and legal medical liability is mentioned, for example, if the doctor let the patient die, his hands were cut off.

In Greece, we also find details of medical interest, as doctors have appeared in court or juries to testify about the severity of the injuries or the causes of death. In 1521, a forensic autopsy was performed on the body of Pope Leo X to determine the cause of death in response to suspicions of poisoning. Antonio Benivieni (1443-1502) wrote an important work: „De Abditis Nonnullis ac Mirandis Morborum el Sanationum Causis”, published in 1507; presents the first important collection of autopsies of anatomopathological value and recounts the results of its examinations in corpses to determine the causes of death; He was the first known doctor to ask relatives of some patients for permission to dissect their bodies. He was secretary of the College of Medicine and professor of internal pathology, pharmacology, physiology, outpatient clinic and forensic medicine, during the American invasion he was a military surgeon. Between 1850 and 1874, he was responsible for the management of the newly founded San Pablo Hospital and served for more than a decade on the Supreme Board of Health, founded in 1841. In 1871, at the Juárez Hospital in Mexico, he performed the first removal of the anus and part of the rectum perineally in America and was the first in the world to perform a ligation of the omentum in the hernias of this membrane. He also distinguished himself by his method of controlling inflammation of the membrane surrounding the lungs. To his experience, he added forensic medicine and forensics. [2] Jean Jacques Bruhier carried out the first work on premature burials in 1742 and collected 189 presumed cases of funerals during his lifetime. As a result, waiting rooms were built in Germany and Italy around 1793.

During the same century, German scientist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg described the Lichtenberg figures, an important discovery that would later be relevant as a sign of outbreaks in the examination of corpses. In addition, Xavier Bichat made interesting descriptions about the process of death and elaborated what later became Bichat`s tripod of vital functions: circulation, breathing and nerve function. Pierre Hubert Nysten also pronounced the laws of rigidity of the corpse that bear his name. Jean-Jacques Belloc[4] is considered the creator of forensic medicine in France. In Spain, forensic medicine developed in two areas: in the 1870s, as a member of the National Academy of Medicine, he distinguished himself as editor-in-chief of the publication of the prestigious group of nationally recognized doctors: the Gaceta Médica de México, whose editorial line was characterized by freedom and expression and variety of articles presented. as long as they were based on the scientific method.