Career
Following a short period in general practice, Smith became an assistant in the Edinburgh department of forensic medicine at the suggestion of Professor Harvey Littlejohn. He obtained his M.D. in 1914 with a gold medal and the Alison prize.
Smith returned to New Zealand in 1914 and took up a post as Medical Officer of Health for Otago at Dunedin. During World War I, Smith served as a Major in the New Zealand Army Corps. In 1917, Smith took up a post as medico-legal advisor to the Government of Egypt and senior lecturer in forensic medicine at the School of Medicine in Cairo. Smith went on to establish himself as an authority in the field of ballistics and firearms in forensic medicine, publishing the first edition of Textbook of Forensic Medicine in 1925.
In 1928, Smith was appointed to the Regius chair of forensic medicine at Edinburgh University and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, a post he held 1931 to 1953 (succeeded by Professor Thomas J Mackie.) Smith was Rector of the University of Edinburgh from 1954 to 1957. He published an autobiography, Mostly Murder, in 1959. He died in 1969 in Edinburgh.
In Queen's Birthday Honours 1944 Smith was appointed as a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. In the New Year Honours 1949 Smith was appointed as a Knight Bachelor and invested on 4 March 1949.
Read more about this topic: Sydney Smith (forensic Expert)
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