Aids to forensic medicine and toxicology is a book written by W.G. Aitchison Robertson. The book has a plot of seldom medical evidence required with regard to the identification of the living, though it may sometimes be so. Tattoo marks may disappear during life; after death, the coloring matter may be found in the proximal glands. Fingerprint impressions are the most trustworthy of all means of identification. In cases of doubtful sex in the living, the size of the penis or clitoris, and whether perforates or not, should be noted. After puberty, questions about menstrual or vicarious discharges should be asked. The number, kind, and presence of erupted teeth can be used to estimate age. The two most potent are fly agaric, or Agaricus muscarius, and Amanita phalloides. The active principle of the former is phallic and of the latter muscarine. Many diseases, such as diarrhea, enteric fever, and cholera, may be caused by eating infected food. Tyrotoxic cheese consumption has resulted in widespread poisoning epidemics. Ergotism from eating bread made with ergotized wheat is now rare, but pellagra from the consumption of moldy maize is common.
W. G. Aitchison Robertson was a Scottish doctor, barrister, and authority on medical law who lived in the 20th century (c. 1865–18 November 1946). At the University of Edinburgh, he pursued a career in medicine, earning an MB ChB in 1887 and a DSc in 1892. He resided at 26 Minto Street in Edinburgh and worked as a general practitioner in the Newington neighborhood. Around 1895, he also started giving lectures at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh on medical law and public health. He was chosen as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1896. William Rutherford, Sir Thomas Richard Fraser, Sir William Turner, and Sir Byrom Bramwell were the men that proposed to him. He relocated to Mayfield Lodge on Mayfield Road in Edinburgh in 1910. Soon after, he traveled to London to enroll in Lincoln's Inn's supplementary barrister training program. He lived out the remainder of his days in England. On November 18, 1946, in Bournemouth, he passed away. James, his illegitimate son, was born in 1905 to nurse Edith Burgess.
