Abstract
This is a special issue of the journal, which contains a number of selected papers from the 39th National Congress of the Italian Society of Legal Medicine (SIMLA), held in Ancona, Italy, from 29 September to 2 October 2009, under the auspices of the University of Ancona.
More than 500 participants from all over Italy and a few international guests gathered in this beautiful city on the Adriatic coast, where in four days as many as 235 plenary lectures, oral and poster communications covering all the major topics of legal and forensic medicine and forensic sciences were presented and thoroughly discussed.
The themes of the congress and chairpersons for each are detailed below:
medicolegal expertise in criminal trials and lawsuits - F Buzzi; Ethical, deontological and medicolegal problems of the living will - G Umani Ronchi; SIMLA Guidelines for the evaluation of permanent impairment - D De Leo, L Mastroroberto, E Ronchi, B Vergari; Accreditation and quality issues in forensic sciences - SD Ferrara; Sudden death - MF Colonna, V Fineschi; Predictive genetic counselling in pregnancy - L Palmieri; Permanent macrodisability assessment - P Fedeli; Alcohol and legal medicine - R Catanesi; Italian DNA database of criminal profiles - E D'Aloja; Forensic toxicology - SD Ferrara and E Bertol; Psychic trauma - P Ricci, S Luberto, GC Nivoli.
As is the tradition of the SIMLA, a Volume of Proceedings of the National Congress is published in Italian and includes all the presentations given at the meeting and submitted for publication.
However, for the first time in the long history of SIMLA (founded by Cesare Lombroso in the year 1897), some selected papers devoted to subjects of potential interest for the international scientific community have been collected in a special issue of a peer-reviewed, internationally renowned scientific journal: Medicine, Science and the Law.
What is the purpose of this operation?
Although the opportunity to offer greater visibility to a selected number of Italian forensic scientists is a significant reason, it is by no means the only one.
A more comprehensive answer to this question would include another question: ‘What is, in the present era of globalization, the international value of the national congress of SIMLA’?
An easy reply might mention the ‘peculiarities’ of legal medicine and forensic science, linked to the specific requirements of Italian laws and regulations, often different from those existing in other national jurisdictions. Although this point is clearly correct, it looks fairly simplistic.
In our opinion, the main ‘contribution’ which SIMLA can offer to the international community of forensic medicine and science is its long ‘holistic’ history, rare if not unique in western countries (and in some respects similar to the German system).
Indeed, since its origin as an independent discipline with Paolo Zacchia (Rome 1584-1659) and his famous book ‘Quaestiones medicolegales’, Italian legal medicine always demonstrated a close unity with the forensic sciences (forensic pathology, forensic toxicology, forensic chemistry, forensic biology, forensic biochemistry, forensic anthropology, etc.) which over the centuries branched out from the original trunk.
Even in the present hypertechnological era, the academic discipline of ‘Medicina Legale’ in the Italian university system includes not only legal and forensic medicine but also social medicine, criminology, forensic psychopathology, forensic toxicology, deontology, medical ethics and clinical bioethics. Consequently, in most instances in the same institutes of ‘Medicina Legale’ different but correlated and intensively interacting types of competence and expertise co-exist, unified by appropriate characteristic knowledge and logic in approaching problems, which is required for the correct application of science to the formation and enforcement of the law (Res Medica sub Specie luris).
Just a flavour of these peculiarities of Italian legal medicine and forensic science can be found in the papers included in this special supplementary issue of Medicine, Science and the Law.