[Narrator] Forensic science is all around us. We see it in the news,
on our favorite television shows and read about it in popular novels. It is part of our daily lives.
When a life is unexpectedly extinguished, we need answers and seek the cause.
Today, this need is addressed in police investigations, laboratories courtrooms and
all of the venues in which scientific medicine interacts with the law, the field of forensics.
The National Library of Medicine presents Visible Proofs: Forensic Views of the Body.
An exhibition about the history of forensic medicine.
Over the centuries, physicians, surgeons and other professionals have struggled to develop scientific
methods that translate views of bodies and body parts into visible proofs that can persuade judges
juries and the public. [Fowler] Almost everything is derived originally from pathology which is
if you look at the original word pathology, the greek word, it's study of disease. [Fierro] All
of medicine deals with the little mystery of what happens to be wrong with the patient.
Now we come into the picture after this event has already occurred the individual is dead
on the other hand the information that we we gather from these dead people
it has to, is our mission in medicine, be used for prevention.
[Narrator] Forensic Medicine also called Medical Jurisprudence or Legal Medicine,
emerged in the 1600s, a time when physicians and surgeons were becoming increasingly
involved in legal proceedings. In the late 1700s, Medical Jurisprudence became part of the formal
medical curriculum. To win acceptance, aspiring medical experts had to make their procedures,
accomplishments and themselves visible.
Today, forensic medicine increasingly relies on DNA analysis, digital imaging and other
sophisticated technologies to identify victims, convict the guilty and exonerate the innocent
in criminal civil and governmental proceedings. [Scheck] The great thing about forensic science
in the criminal justice system is that we've been able, certainly with DNA testing, not just
to protect the innocent but to do a better job of going out there and apprehending those who really
committed the crime. [Narrator] DNA analysis has emerged as an indispensable method of identifying
suspects and victims of crimes. [Fowler] Everywhere we go we potentially leave a small
amount of DNA behind which can then be picked up and examined in a laboratory and the actual
nature of that DNA can then be compared to a sample of DNA from a person who is a suspect
at a scene. [Sherry] The role of DNA is a fascinating impartial role because it speaks
with an impartiality, a fact it can exonerate the innocent and it can implicate the truly guilty
not per se in a value-laden way but just as a statement of the material fact that this person
was at some place in time at which point they left a trace of their DNA.
What we're discovering in the recent advances in molecular biology and genetics is that we have an
unprecedented opportunity to identify people with a precision to affiliate them correctly with the
family and and that's a new type of technology and so it's raising expectations of closure,
it is providing a meaning and a value to science in terms of how it can deliver an
impact on the lives of everyone even if they don't participate in research
[Narrator] Since the 17th century, narratives have mixed violence and murder police and
scientific investigation and courtroom drama and have attracted a mass audience but the intensity
of public interest in forensics is now vastly greater due to its prominence in the mass media
as portrayed in the news and crime dramas. [Sheck] Well, the American public knows the
most about forensic science from watching high profile trials on television and these days from
watching CSI and other you know police procedurals and i have to tell you that forensic science
is not CSI. It's not that new technologies don't exist, they do, it's just that they don't exist
and they're not implemented in the ways that we see on television. [Sherry] As fast as modern
sciences and the technology it's virtually impossible to get the right answer with the
confidence the show purports in 60 minutes. So I think exhibits like this are pulling together the
whole growth in the uh the maturation of the field where the science is taking us in the future.
CSI certainly you know holds up the excitement of of a potential quick answer. We're not quite there
yet. [Sheck] Well it's great to have an exhibition that truly demonstrates to the public the way that
science can change the way we do business in the criminal justice system because it's interesting
how it evolves. You have something like DNA technology and it's a great advance but one of its
primary contributions is it shows the inadequacy of some past technology. [Narrator] Visible
Proofs: Forensic Views of the Body, explores the human endeavors in developing scientific methods
that translate views of bodies and body parts into visible proofs. It tells stories of the people,
sciences and technologies that make visible the cause and manner behind a death. [Fierro]
The patient is telling you what happened to him. He's telling you a story. He is asking you to
figure out what happened to him and that you do you have great respect for your patient whether
he's dead or whether he's alive and seek to answer those questions that need to be answered.