Song Ci (; 1186–1249) was a Chinese physician, judge, forensic medical scientist, anthropologist, and writer of the

Southern Song The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest ...

dynasty. He is most well known for being the world's first

forensic entomologist Forensic entomology is the scientific study of the colonization of a dead body by arthropods. This includes the study of insect types commonly associated with cadavers, their respective life cycles, their ecological presences in a given environme ...

, having recorded his experience examining bodies for judicial cases in the ''

Collected Cases of Injustice Rectified ''Collected Cases of Injustice Rectified'' or the ''Washing Away of Wrongs'' is a Chinese book written by Song Ci in 1247 during the Song Dynasty (960-1276) as a handbook for coroners. The author combined many historical cases of forensic scie ...

'' (''Xi Yuan Ji Lu''). Song Ci was born into a bureaucrat family in Jianyang (in modern

Fujian Fujian (; alternately romanized as Fukien or Hokkien) is a province on the southeastern coast of China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its ...

Province). He served as a presiding judge in the high courts of the Song dynasty for several terms. During his post at a criminal court in

Hunan Hunan (, ; ) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the South Central China region. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangx ...

Province, Song Ci personally examined the crime scenes each time he encountered a difficult case of

homicide Homicide occurs when a person kills another person. A homicide requires only a volitional act or omission that causes the death of another, and thus a homicide may result from accidental, reckless, or negligent acts even if there is no inten ...

or physical assault. Song Ci combined historical cases of forensic science with his own experiences and wrote the book ''

'', the oldest known evidence of forensic entomology, with an eye to avoiding miscarriages of justice. The book was esteemed by generations of forensic scientists. Eventually it was translated into English, German, Japanese, French, and other languages. It recounts a murder using a sickle in 1235. A villager was stabbed to death and it was determined that his wounds were inflicted by a sickle. Sickles were used for cutting rice during harvest time, which led them to suspect that a peasant worker was the culprit. The villagers were assembled in the town square where they were made to relinquish their sickles. Despite the clean appearance of one sickle, flies were attracted to traces of blood and swarmed it and not other sickles, revealing the perpetrator, who confessed to his crime. The book was meant to be a criminal investigations textbook for coroners. In this book Song Ci depicts several cases in which he made notes on how a person died and elaborates on probable causes. He explains in detail how to examine a corpse both before and after burial as well as the process of determining a probable cause of death. The main purpose of this book was to act as a guide for other investigators so they could assess the scene of the crime effectively. The level of detail in explaining his observations in his cases is the first recorded account in history of someone using forensic entomology for judicial matters.

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