This essay explores the efforts of forensic pathologists in the United States to establish
the intellectual and social territory of their specialty, both inside and outside of medicine,
and to control the institutional context of its practice. This process pitted forensic
pathologists againstpowerful political machines for control of the coroner's office, where
the application of medical knowledge legitimized social policy; against the legal profession for control of the application of forensic science in the courts; and against fellow
members of the American medical profession for control of entry to the specialty.
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