LEGAL MEDICINE HEAD DAILY OBSERVER OF VIOLENT DEATH

Experience with approximately a hundred homicides a year makes violent or mysterious deaths almost a daily business with Dr. Alan R. Moritz, professor of Legal Medicine and head of the Medical School's Department of Legal Medicine, according to an article in the forthcoming issue of the Alumni Bulletin.

During the past two years some 400 homicides or other fatalities of suspicious character were investigated by the Department. And in all these cases Dr. Moritz and his assistants obtained evidence which helped establish guilt, innocence, or enabled law enforcement authorities to reconstruct the circumstances of the death," the Bulletin said.

Meritz Consulting Pathologist

A hundred homicides a year is death in high numbers in terms of the average murder story reader. Yet, this is the average of the cases in which Dr. Moritz is called to assist the State Police in his official capacity as Consulting Pathologist to the State Department of Public Safety.

His time and that of his staff is available without compensation to all medical examiners in the state. In return, the University receives access to valuable case material.

Still another 100 deaths--all occurring in state hospitals, come annually under the examination of the Department of Legal Medicine. These come through the work of Dr. Walter W. Jetter, an instructor in the Medical School and a regular member of the staff, who is the pathologist of the State Department of Mental Health.

Most of the development in Harvard's service to law enforcement officers has come during the past two years since the opening of the Department's new laboratories and the establishment of the George Burgess Magrath Library of Legal Medicine.

Much of the evidence obtained by Dr. Moritz and his colleagues has come through the application of special laboratory procedures which ordinarily would be unavailable to medical examiners.

In addition to its consultive services and the important laboratory research connected with this work, the Department of Legal Medicine has extended its teaching facilities to include other medical schools in the Greater Boston area.