Posthumous Reputation
In recent years, there has been some reassessment of Spilsbury's reputation which has raised questions over his degree of objectivity. An article in the British Medical Journal noted how the "virtuosity" of Spilsbury's performances in the mortuary and the courtroom "threatened to undermine the foundations of forensic pathology as a modern and objective specialism." He has in particular been criticised for his insistence on working alone, his refusal to train students and an unwillingness to engage in academic research or peer review. This, according to the article, "lent him an aura of infallibility that for many raised concerns that it was his celebrity rather than his science that persuaded juries to credit his evidence over all others."
Read more about this topic: Bernard Spilsbury
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