Bodies Of Evidence: Medicine And The Politics Of The English Inquest, 1830-1926; Author: Burney, Ian A.; Hardback; Book

Author: Burney, Ian A.
Hardback; Book; 6 Halftones, 2 Line Drawings
176 pages
Published: February 2000
The Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN: 080186240X

Burney (history of science, technology, and medicine, U. of Manchester) explores the tension between two models of the coroner's inquest, held to account for cases of unexplained death. On the one hand, he says, advocates of progressive medical science wanted it to align with a medical model of investigation and explanation. Others wanted to frame it as a time-honored bulwark of Englishpopular liberties. He finds that this contention between medical and political visions throws doubt on the basic assumptions about he rise of science as a model for socially authoritative knowledge.The author offers a reinterpretation of the role of the scientific expert in the modern democratic state. At the core of his study lies the coroner's inquest, which he explores in terms of the dynamic interplay between the medical and political visions of it.