文| In the thriller film "Barber Todd" directed by Tim Burton in 2007, as the protagonist of an ordinary barber, Jiang Yinlong
immediately showed his mastery of cutting after falling into the dark side due to hatred. On the side of killing skills such as throat and bloodletting, he seemed to be an experienced killer with rich practical experience. Is it because the movie ignores the protagonist’s rapid training process in order to promote the development of the plot? The answer to
is no. Traditional European barbers are proficient in surgical operations. It is a long-standing tradition. In fact, the medieval barbers themselves were surgeons. The typical red, blue and white rotating columns of barbershops refer to arteries, veins and bandages. In addition to haircuts, the daily work of barbers in the Middle Ages also included, but was not limited to, tooth extraction, bloodletting, bandaging, urination, cutting tumors, tying hernias... the best of them even had cataracts. With these technologies, barbers have actually joined the legal profession community, although this status has never been recognized by judges and lawyers. If
is replaced by a man, the barber's razor may become a forensic scalpel. This phenomenon was not an exaggeration in most of the Middle Ages.
"The Barber Todd" stills
The sparks of "Encyclopedia of National Law" and "Alemanni Law"
From the perspective of European macro legal history, the exquisite litigation procedures of the ancient Roman era and the wild judgments of the German tribes Both the Christian Church and the difficult bridging of the secular legal system have focused on procedural justice. Whether it is a clergy judge or a secular judge, under the background that torture techniques and evidence collection methods have not been fully developed, they can only give and protect the party’s right of proof as much as possible, but it is difficult to distinguish the authenticity of the evidence. The fundamental reason for the unfailing system of judgment and duel for hundreds of years.
However, the denial of the efforts of ancient European legal scholars just because of the corpse bleeding and other systems also seems to be partial. There is also a dark line of forensic appraisal in the history of European legal system. The light of science flashes through scattered codes and regulations, but this line is intermittent and often covered by the characteristics of the ignorant era and is not easy to be detected by later generations.
As early as 44 years ago, there were autopsy cases in ancient Rome. This year Caesar was assassinated in the Senate. According to Utropius, more than 60 people were involved in the murder. However, afterwards, a doctor examined Caesar's body and found that among the 23 wounds, the stab wound that penetrated the first and second ribs of the chest was fatal. Two thousand years later, "Detective Queen" Agatha Christie created a case with very similar modus operandi in his "Murder on the Orient Express". The twelve people in the story "shared" the revenge with "one person, one knife". Crime, in fact, the doctors in ancient Rome tried to solve the problem of the identity of the murderer through medical means, and almost got the answer.
"Encyclopedia of National Law" compiled by Justinian
In 19, the Romans also carried out an autopsy after the death of the little Germanicus, known as "the last hero of Rome," because it was rumored that he was poisoned. However, the autopsies of Caesar and the little Germanicus were all private actions rather than the requirements of law enforcement agencies. Their development was related to the distinguished status of the deceased. The Roman law did not provide for forensic identification.
In 395, the Roman Empire was divided into two parts. The Western Roman Empire was destroyed in 476, while the Eastern Roman Empire carried the brilliance of the Roman Empire until the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and the country was more than a thousand years old. In 529, the Emperor Justinian I of the Eastern Roman Empire ordered the compilation of the first comprehensive code in Europe, the National Law Encyclopedia. In this code, the figure of a doctor finally appeared.
The "Encyclopedia of National Laws" stipulates: "The doctor should not be a general witness of which party in the litigation, but should help the judge to make fair explanations and claims based on his expertise." Although this provision has not yet risen to forensic expertise. However, medicine is not completely absent in the legal system.
Little Germanicus
At the same time as the "Encyclopedia of National Laws" came out, the nobles of the Germanic kingdoms also began to integrate customary laws, and promoted the emergence of the codification of Western European codes in the 5th to 9th centuries, Visigoth The Kingdom’s "Urek Code", the Lombard Kingdom’s "Rothrie Code", the German "Saxon Code", "Alemanni Code", and Britain’s "Essebert Code" and other "barbaric codes", all From this periodproduct.
Although these "barbaric codes" cannot be synonymous with the rigorous, detailed and sound system of "National Law Encyclopedia", accidents also appear in these "barbaric codes". The "Alemanni Act" specifies the anatomical details of the injury in detail, and requires compensation according to the location and extent of the injury. For this purpose, a forensic examination shall be conducted. For example, one of the provisions:
"head fracture due to beating by another person" ……If the bone of the brain is exposed due to a fracture, the doctor can touch the brain with feathers or whale baleen, and pays 12 Solidus; if the brain is exposed as a result of the beating, the doctor will heal it with medicine or silk cloth, and it can be proved to be true. You will lose 40 Solitos...” Why the Alemanni in the game
has centuries of Roman law, the "Encyclopedia of National Law" still only stipulates the fair obligation of doctors as witnesses, while the relatively backward " Can the Alemanni Act turn the details of the law into forensic identification? Because the German customary law originally had the tradition of "pricing" the various parts of the identity, and even cutting off different fingers in the fight, they corresponded to different fines, so the "forensic appraisal" of the "Alemanni Act" , More or less an accident. Moreover, under the background of the era where God's judgment is the mainstay, it is difficult to judge the extent to which these regulations are implemented. After all, there is not enough case evidence behind the code.
But even so, the autopsy cases in ancient Rome, the restrictions on doctor witnesses in the "Encyclopedia of National Laws" and the provisions of the "Alemanni Act" laid the groundwork for future forensic appraisals, and this foreshadowing is indeed true. It began to emerge after a few hundred years.
Roman law nourishes two eras
"The Charter of the Kingdom of Jerusalem" initiates the era change
In the middle of the 12th century, epoch-making changes appeared. In the "Charter of the Kingdom of Jerusalem" formulated by the Kingdom of Jerusalem, for the first time the forensic identification system is clarified and its procedures are specified in detail. Section 223 of the Charter of the High Court stipulates: “The lord may send three persons to the person’s home, including a physician, a pharmacist, and a surgeon... the physician shall observe him and check his pulse and urine; Within the scope of a doctor, the person should show his trauma in front of three persons..." Similarly, section 85 also stipulates the autopsy procedure: "One of the three persons sent by the lord is his representative and the other two are the arbitrators. The three persons. Go and check the corpse right away... Explain what was wrong with the corpse, where the injury was, and what kind of equipment was used to cause the injury. If the cause and indication of the possible killing are not found, you should tell the lord..."
" The Charter of the Kingdom of Jerusalem indicated that there had been forensic examinations of living and dead bodies during the period of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Kingdom of Jerusalem is a Christian kingdom established during the First Crusade. Although it is located in the Levant of Asia, it should be regarded as a European country. At the same time, the royal decree issued by King Roger II of Sicily in 1154 also stipulated that doctors were assigned to assist in court investigations. It can be seen that as late as the 12th century, the European forensic appraisal had become institutionalized.
The Kingdom of Jerusalem
took the "Charter of the Kingdom of Jerusalem" as a starting point, and the trend of forensic identification quickly spread throughout Europe, and canon law is no exception. Pope Innocent III’s 1209 imperial decree appeared to appoint a doctor to appear in court to determine the nature of the trauma and state the requirements for the examination; the “New Edition of the Decree” compiled by Gregory IX in 1234 required the expertise of doctors. Systematically identify medical problems such as impotence, childbirth, cesarean section, birth, sexual crimes, etc. Because the church's jurisdiction over secular life is mainly concentrated in the fields of marriage, inheritance, etc., forensic identification in canon law basically does not involve autopsy, but for secular regimes, the scope of forensic identification is much broader.
In 1194, England established the post of coroner, whose main job is to determine the cause of death when a deceased person passed away under unusual circumstances, and to decide whether to apply civil or criminal procedures based on the results of natural death, suicide, homicide, etc. . However, the doctor does not participate in the post-mortem, and the coroner can only examine the body with the help of a jury to find signs of violence and determine the number and type of trauma.
Boss caricature "Cure Stupidity"
1207, Normandy customary law required the identification of diseases, rape and pregnancy cases.The slain body undergoes an autopsy. In 1260, Paris customary law required the use of surgeon’s identification as evidence in place of duels and judgments. In 1331, the decree of Philip IV also stipulated examinations for surgeons and required the government to manage the surgical profession, and physicians, surgeons and midwives to report injuries and deaths.
In 1249, a doctor in Bologna, Italy, appeared in court to take an oath as a medical appraiser to examine a woman accused of abortion. In 1252, the Bologna City Law clearly stipulated that all victims of bodily injury cases must undergo a medical examination and, if necessary, an autopsy. In the two or three centuries after this, almost all major Italian cities made similar regulations, making Italy the main birthplace of European forensic medicine.
England, France, and Italy were the representative regions where forensic appraisal in Europe emerged at that time. It can be seen that during this period, it was limited to the medical level. The regulations on forensic appraisal in various countries were relatively simple, and the degree of doctors' participation was not deep. By the 16th century, the German "Carolingian Penal Code" had been able to stipulate that the penalty was proportional to the physical harm and consequences caused by criminal acts. This also meant that European medicine was obtained in the 12th, 13th and 16th centuries. Great progress has been made. However, when comparing the "trend" of forensic identification legislation in this period with the "Encyclopedia of National Laws" and "Alemanni Law" longitudinally, we can still clearly see the accumulation of European legal thought.
Henry VIII attended the pious barbers union
The earliest forensic doctor: the barber surgeon who is proficient in bloodletting
The emergence of the European forensic identification system in the 12th and 13th century, will the profession of European forensic medicine also usher in the dawn? This is true from the perspective of system construction, but history has made a small joke here. If forensic medicine is a one-act play on the European legal stage at the end of the Middle Ages, the protagonist from this play is not strictly a forensic doctor, but a barber.
Although legislators in various countries have gradually discovered the importance of forensic identification, in the medical world at that time, doctors generally believed that blood on their hands would damage their dignity, and forensic identification mainly focused on surgical operations, and doctors could not avoid hands. Stained with blood. Therefore, qualified doctors are very reluctant to conduct forensic identification in person, let alone autopsy.
Medieval barber
This trend of thought originated on the one hand from religious belief: the church does not consider surgery to be an important medicine, but treats it as a subsidiary medical practice, or has to be used before the last minute. Dissecting a corpse is an act of disobedience. On the other hand, it originated from laws and customs, because people in the Middle Ages were quite harsh on the responsibilities of doctors. For example, the laws of the Ostrogoth Kingdom required doctors to perform surgical operations. If it fails or causes the patient’s death, it must be handed over to the patient’s relatives and friends.
Religious and customary factors directly cause doctors to be unwilling to risk their lives for surgical operations, and indirectly restrict the stagnation of surgical operations and human anatomy. The 12th century-Just as the pope focused his attention on forensic examinations, the church issued an edict prohibiting priests and monks with medical knowledge from performing surgery and bloodletting on patients. Z1z
Bloodletting is one of the services favored by the nobles. The resistance of
to surgery naturally caused the contempt of doctors. Medieval physicians can be respected as members of various medical associations, and those with knowledge can even become the pope and king’s doctors or preside over lectures in universities; and surgeons can’t even obtain teaching positions in universities. The social atmosphere is such that even doctors who are proficient in surgery have gradually turned to non-invasive treatment. The combined force of the church and the law has made the profession of surgeon almost extinct.
So when the forensic identification required professionals to perform surgical operations, the barber came out. The barbershops of the Middle Ages did not only provide haircuts—not even the main business of haircuts. The best barbers were actually bloodletting. Under the influence of the "father of medicine" Hippocrates' "theory of temperament and body fluids", Europeans in the Middle Ages were keen to achieve body fluid balance and identity health through bloodletting; the aristocracy even had the habit of regular bloodletting, and this industry's most important service The person is a barber with a knife in hand.
A barber holding a knife
bleeding usually takes place in the bathroom. The patient first needs to bathe in warm water, and then the barber wraps the bandage over the bleeding site.The belt prevents the blood flow, and then cuts the raised blood vessels with a razor, and the blood flows out-the red, blue and white rotating column is also the professional symbol of the barber in the bloodletting work day after day.
Of course, as a qualified hairdresser, it is not enough to just be bleeding. After several years of apprenticeship, barbers usually have various surgical techniques such as tooth extraction, bloodletting, bandaging, urine drainage, tumor cutting, and hernia tying. Those who are highly skilled will also go to university to serve as a human anatomy. In paintings depicting early anatomy classes in Europe, doctors often stand behind in a robe, and the barber in a short robe is holding a scalpel.
The "Barber Handbook" published in 1626 described in detail techniques such as venous bleeding, leech bleeding, and anesthesia. It is not difficult to see how many professional skills barbers require. This professional status finally earned the barber the title of "Barber surgeon", and also made the barber the best choice for forensic practitioners. Barber is the earliest forensic doctor in European history, although this profession was born with the contempt and disdain of the elite.
red, blue and white rotating column
Conclusion
The history of the development of forensic identification in Europe has experienced a long period of foreshadowing and achieved unprecedented development in the 12th and 13th centuries. It is closely related to the advancement of medical standards; the University of Bologna is an important research center for anatomy in Italy. The result of this is that Bologna City Law attaches great importance to forensic identification. With the publication of a series of anatomical works in the early 14th century, the forensic appraisal system became more and more perfect. It was also in 1580 that Pope Gregory XIII made mandatory requirements for forensic appraisal in the royal decree.
However, the development of academic and legal systems is always later than the change of social atmosphere. For a long time, qualified physicians still refuse to perform surgical operations themselves, but are only willing to hold various anatomical classics on the scene. Barbers worked. Until the 18th century, the handful of modified razors in the hands of the barber were still flying in the forensic field.
