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THE FATHER OF FORENSIC TOXICOLOGY
- The important toxicological contributions of Matthieu Bonaventura Orfila, (1787-1853), born in Spain and studied medicine in Paris, came at the beginning of the 19th century. He became the attending physician to Louis XVIII, and his "Traité de Toxicologie", first published in 1814, went through many editions and translations. Most of his investigations were concerned with inorganic agents and plant poisons and, to a lesser extent, with the venom of poisonous animals. In his work the use of an experimental approach in toxicology is generally traced. He experimented with a number of plants, describing their effects and attempting to trace the distribution of the poisonous principle compound in the body. His chief experimental animal was the dog, an animal that vomits readily. He correlated the chemistry of a poison with the biological effects it produces in a poisoned individual. He also divided methods for detecting poisons and pointed to the necessity of chemical analysis for the legal proof of lethal intoxication. For the introduction of this approach is considered from many as the father of forensic and experimental toxicology. He established toxicology as a discipline, separate from clinical medicine and pharmacology.
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