Duvall, Nicholas (2017) 'If experts differ, what are we to do in the matter?' : the medico-legal investigation of gunshot wounds in a 1927 Scottish murder trial. Social History of Medicine, 30 (2). pp. 367-388. doi:10.1093/shm/hkw066 ISSN 0951-631X.

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Abstract

This article uses a notorious criminal trial, that of John Donald Merrett for the murder of his mother, as a case study to explore forensic medicine’s treatment of gunshot wounding in pre-war Scotland. This topic, which has hitherto received little attention from historians, provides insight into two issues facing the discipline at this time. First, the competing attempts by prosecution and defence expert witnesses to recreate the wound in a laboratory setting, in order to determine the distance from which the shot had been fired, exposed the uncertainties surrounding the application of a well-known laboratory technique for which no fully agreed-upon protocol existed. Second, the case allows the examination of the working relationship of a medical expert and a gunsmith, in which disciplinary boundaries became indistinct and the wound a shared site of analysis, in a period before the separate profession of forensic science became institutionally grounded in Scotland.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain
Divisions:	Faculty of Arts > History
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Forensic pathology -- History, Gunshot wounds, Merrett, John Donald, 1908-1954, Trials (Murder) -- Scotland
Journal or Publication Title:	Social History of Medicine
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
ISSN:	0951-631X
Official Date:	1 May 2017
Dates:	Date Event 1 May 2017 Published 11 July 2016 Available 19 May 2016 Accepted
Volume:	30
Number:	2
Page Range:	pp. 367-388
DOI:	10.1093/shm/hkw066
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access (Creative Commons)
Date of first compliant deposit:	3 June 2016
Date of first compliant Open Access:	14 July 2016
Funder:	Economic and Social Research Council (Great Britain) (ESRC)
Grant number:	ES/H015523/1 (ESRC)
Related URLs:	Publisher

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