Professor John Glaister (9 March 1856 – 18 December 1932) was a Scottish

forensic Forensic science, also known as criminalistics, is the application of science to Criminal law, criminal and Civil law (legal system), civil laws, mainly—on the criminal side—during criminal investigation, as governed by the legal standard ...

scientist who worked as a general practitioner,

police The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and t ...

surgeon In modern medicine, a surgeon is a medical professional who performs surgery. Although there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon usually is also a licensed physician or received the same medical training as ...

, and as a

lecturer Lecturer is an List of academic ranks, academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. T ...

Glasgow Royal Infirmary The Glasgow Royal Infirmary (GRI) is a large teaching hospital. With a capacity of around 1,000 beds, the hospital campus covers an area of around , and straddles the Townhead and Dennistoun districts on the north-eastern fringe of the city cen ...

Medical School and the

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

. Glasgow University's Glaister Prize is named in his honour.

Life

Glaister was born in

Lanark Lanark (; gd, Lannraig ; sco, Lanrik) is a town in South Lanarkshire, Scotland, located 20 kilometres to the south-east of Hamilton. The town lies on the River Clyde, at its confluence with Mouse Water. In 2016, the town had a population of 9 ...

on 9 March 1856 the son of Joseph Glaister and his wife, Marion Hamilton Weir. He attended the Lanark Grammar School. In 1873, he enrolled to the Faculty of Medicine of Glasgow University. After graduating, he became a police surgeon and a general practitioner in Townhead. In 1881, he was appointed a lecturer in Medical Jurisprudence at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary Medical School, and in 1887 a Special Lecturer in Public Health. In 1888 he was promoted to Professor of Forensic Medicine and Public Health, which post he held until 1931, being succeeded by his son and namesake. In 1898 he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...

. His proposers were

John Gray McKendrick John Gray McKendrick FRS FRSE FRCPE LLD (12 August 1841 – 2 January 1926) was a distinguished Scottish physiologist. He was born and studied in Aberdeen, Scotland, and served as Regius Professor of Physiology at the University of Glasgow fr ...

, William Jack,

Frederick Orpen Bower Frederick Orpen Bower FRSE FRS (4 November 1855 – 11 April 1948) was an English botanist. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1891. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the Linnean Society in 1909 and the Darwin Medal of the Ro ...

and

James Thomson Bottomley James Thomson Bottomley (10 January 1845 – 18 May 1926) was an Irish-born British physicist. He is noted for his work on thermal radiation and on his creation of 4-figure logarithm tables, used to convert long multiplication and division ca ...

. At this time he had consulting rooms at 71 North St Mungo Street in Glasgow. In 1902, he published his most famous work, ''A Textbook of Medical Jurisprudence, Toxicology and Public Health''. He was also noted as an expert witness in widely publicised legal cases such as the trial of

Oscar Slater Oscar Joseph Slater (8 January 1872 – 31 January 1948) was the victim of a miscarriage of justice in Scotland. Wrongly convicted of murder and sentenced to death, he was freed after almost two decades of hard labour at Scotland’s HM Prison ...

in 1909. He died at 3 Newton Place in

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

on 17 December 1932.

Family

He was married to Mary Scott Clark. Their second son John Glaister (1892-1971) was also a physician and also a Fellow of the

. His daughter married Dr John Borland McVail, son of his friend Dr John McVail.

John Glaister, Jr

John was born on 31 May 1892 in

. He was raised at the family home at 4 Grafton Place off Grafton Square in Glasgow. His career closely paralleled that of his father. He was educated at Glasgow High School then studied medicine at

Glasgow University , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

graduating in 1925. He assisted his father and Glasgow police until 1928, then served at the

University of Cairo Cairo University ( ar, جامعة القاهرة, Jāmi‘a al-Qāhira), also known as the Egyptian University from 1908 to 1940, and King Fuad I University and Fu'ād al-Awwal University from 1940 to 1952, is Egypt's premier public university ...

as Professor of Forensic Medicine, replacing Prof

Sydney Smith Sydney Smith (3 June 1771 – 22 February 1845) was an English wit, writer, and Anglican cleric. Early life and education Born in Woodford, Essex, England, Smith was the son of merchant Robert Smith (1739–1827) and Maria Olier (1750–1801), ...

. He succeeded his father as Professor of Forensic Medicine at

Glasgow University , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

in 1931. He made special studies of human and mammal hairs, to be able to distinguish one from another. In 1934 he was elected a Fellow of the

. His proposers were Andrew Hunter,

Edward Provan Cathcart Edward Provan Cathcart (18 July 1877 – 18 February 1954) was a Scottish physician and physiologist of international fame. The Cathcart Chair in Biochemistry at the University of Glasgow is named after him. Together with John Boyd Orr he pub ...

, Sir

Edward Battersby Bailey Sir Edward Battersby Bailey FRS FRSE MC CB LLD (1 July 1881 – 19 March 1965) was an English geologist. Life Bailey was born in Marden, Kent, the son of Dr James Battersby Bailey and Louise Florence Carr. He was educated at Kendal grammar s ...

and James Gordon Gray. In 1935 he famously solved a human jigsaw of 70 body parts in the

Buck Ruxton Buck Ruxton (born Bukhtyar Chompa Rustomji Ratanji Hakim; 21 March 1899 – 12 May 1936) was an Indian-born physician convicted and subsequently hanged for the September 1935 murders of his common-law wife, Isabella Ruxton (née Kerr), and the f ...

murder case. Here he successfully identified two separate female victims (Ruxton's wife and maid) from the various parts. The author

Erle Stanley Gardner Erle Stanley Gardner (July 17, 1889 – March 11, 1970) was an American lawyer and author. He is best known for the Perry Mason series of crime fiction, detective stories, but he wrote numerous other novels and shorter pieces and also a series of ...

dedicated a Perry Mason book, "The Case of the Horrified Heirs", to Glaister. His nephew, the television producer

Gerard Glaister John Leslie Glaister DFC (21 December 1915 – 5 February 2005), known as Gerard or Gerrard Glaister, was a British television producer and director best known for his work with the BBC. Amongst his most notable successes as a producer were ''Co ...

, based his 1968 production ''The Expert'' on his work. He retired in 1962 and died on 3 October 1971. He is buried on the top section of the

Glasgow Necropolis The Glasgow Necropolis is a Victorian cemetery in Glasgow, Scotland. It is on a low but very prominent hill to the east of Glasgow Cathedral (St. Mungo's Cathedral). Fifty thousand individuals have been buried here. Typical for the period, only ...

with his wife, Isobel Rachel Lindsay, in the family grave of her father, Sir John Lindsay, Town Clerk of Glasgow.

Publications

* *''Legal Medicine'' (1922) *''Medico-Legal Aspects of the Ruxton Case'' (1936) co-written with

James Couper Brash James Couper Brash, MC, FRCSE, FRSE (24 October 1886 in Cathcart – 19 January 1958 in Edinburgh) was a leading anatomist and embryologist in Britain. Early life and family James Couper Brash was born in Cathcart in Scotland, the son of J ...

*''A Study of Hairs and Wools'' (1937) *''Recent Advances in Forensic Medicine'' (1939) *''The Power of Poison'' (1954) *''Final Diagnosis'' (1964) his autobiography

References

British forensic scientists Alumni of the University of Glasgow People educated at Lanark Grammar School 1856 births 1932 deaths {{Scotland-bio-stub