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The development of the interface between law, medicine and psychiatry: medico-legal perspectives in history
Abstract
History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.
Medicine and law were related from early times. This relation resulted as
necessity of protecting communities from the irresponsible acts of impostors.
Various legal codes dealing with medical malpractice existed in Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, Islam, Greece, Rome, Persia and India. The first documented Code of Laws ever used by human civilisation in, for example, Mesopotamia is to be found from the Law Code of Hammurabi – a textual source of evidence concerning the skills of Mesopotamian physicians. It was also Hammurabi who made the first declaration of human rights in history
