Turning the pages back... March 31, 1869 (03/28/99)

Turning the pages back...

March 31, 1869

Fans of the TV series "Homicide" should hearken to the life story of Ukraine's pioneer in forensic science and criminology, Mykola Bokarius. His very name is like something out of an Edgar Allan Poe story.

Born on March 31, 1869, in Odessa into a high school teacher's family, he graduated from the medical faculty of Kharkiv University in 1895, then worked as an intern at a surgical clinic in the city, and began lecturing on plastic anatomy at the Kharkiv Art School.

In 1897 he secured the post of assistant dissector at the chair of forensic medicine at his alma mater. He received his M.D. in 1902. In 1903 he joined the faculty as assistant professor with the forensics chair and the faculty of law. In 1910 he was awarded a full professorship and published his landmark textbook (in Russian), "Sudebno-Meditsinkie, Mikroskopichnie i Mikrokhimicheskie Issledovannie Vecshchestvennykh Dokazatelstv" (Forensic, Microscopic and Microchemical Investigation of Material Evidence). Five years later came a forensic primer for use in the courtroom. (In 1930 it was reworked into a reference work for jurists and doctors). In 1923 he established the Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Medicine in Kharkiv, which was renamed in his honor upon his death.

Thanks to the Ukrainianization policies of the day, we have titles on forensics in Ukrainian. Dr. Bokarius founded and edited two journals: Arkhiv Kryminolohiyi ta Sudebnoyi Medytsyny (Archive of Criminology and Forensics, 1926-1927) and Pytannia Kryminalistyky ta Naukovo-Sudebnoyi Ekspertyzy (Issues of Criminology and Forensic Expertise, 1931).

From 1924 onward he served as a consultant to the Ukrainian Main Militia in Kharkiv. Dr. Bokarius also had senior government positions in the commissariats for education and health. Dr. Bokarius analyzed over 5,000 items of material evidence, performed over 3,000 autopsies, and wrote more than 130 scientific works. He invented various forensic medical instruments, special chemical methods of analysis and techniques of evaluating clues. According to the Who Was Who in the USSR compiled by a Munich-based institute for the study of the Soviet Union, "his sperm test and macroscopic method of examining strangulation marks are to be found in all manuals and textbooks of forensic medicine."

Acknowledged as the Ukrainian SSRs leading forensic medical expert, his laboratory was renowned throughout the USSR. Dr. Bokarius died in Kharkiv on December 23, 1931.

Source: "Bokarius, Mykola," Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Vol. 1 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984); Who Was Who in the USSR (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1972).

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