Charles Norris

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Norris, ca.1920

Charles Norris (* 4. December 1867 in Hoboken (New Jersey) ; † 11. September 1935 in New York City ) was an American forensic scientist and pioneer of forensic toxicology . He was the first official chief medical examiner in New York from February 1, 1918 until his death in 1935.

Training and initial work experience

Norris came from one of the richest families in Philadelphia . After attending school, Norris studied at Yale University and earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy with a major in science . He then studied at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons , where he received his doctorate in medicine in 1892 . After four years of study in Europe (including Berlin and Vienna ) he returned to New York and in 1904 became laboratory director at the Bellevue and Allied Hospitals . These included the Bellevue Hospital, the Gouverneur Hospital , the Harlem Hospital and the Fordham Hospital .

Abuses in the US coroner system

At the turn of the 20th century, assessing unexplained deaths in the United States was the task of the coroners . Most of these were not trained medical professionals, and political relationships were often more important than professional qualifications when assigning posts. Many coroners took advantage of their position to further improve their already relatively ample income through unclean machinations. This went up to the point of direct bribery if suicides or even murders were to be recorded as accidents.

New York City's new mayor, John Purroy Mitchel , sworn in on January 1, 1914 , commissioned Leonard M. Wallstein to investigate the New York coroner system. This investigation lasted from June 1914 to January 1915. In about 40 percent of the total of 320 deaths examined, Wallstein found not a single evidence in the files for the alleged cause of death. He also found that the Coronersystem cost the city administration of New York City each year 172,000 dollars, while the Medical Examiners Office of Suffolk County in Boston with 32,500 dollars a year got along. Wallstein recommended that Mitchel abolish the coroners and set up a central forensic investigation center along the lines of Suffolk County. On April 7, 1915, the NYC legislature decided to abolish the previous coroner system.

Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York

Bellevue Hospital in 1950

In early 1918, the Office of Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York (OCME), housed in Bellevue Hospital, was officially established. A month later, on February 1, 1918, Charles Norris was named the first official head of the OCME, against the opposition of the newly elected New York Mayor, John Francis Hylan . One of the most important employees Norris hired was the biochemist Alexander O. Gettler .

Norris faced chronic underfunding in the operation of his agency, which resulted in numerous out-of-pocket investments.

Tetraethyl lead

The Standard Oil Company operated a facility for the production of the anti- knock agent tetraethyl lead in a refinery in Bayway (New Jersey) in the early 1920s . Soon the workers who were busy with the production began to behave strangely, so that the building was nicknamed The loony gas building among the workers ( Eng .: "The crazy gasoline building"). In the autumn of 1924 the condition of the workers deteriorated rapidly. 32 of the 49 workers were hospitalized, 5 of them died. The OCME was commissioned with the investigation. Gettler was able to prove lead poisoning as the cause of death . After Norris submitted the investigation report, New York City, New Jersey and Philadelphia banned leaded gasoline additives , among others . This ban was lifted again by the federal government in 1926. Norris kept an eye on the problem, however, and in 1934 was able to show that the concentration of lead in road dust had increased by 50 percent since 1924.

The Radium Girls

In Orange, New Jersey , the United States Radium Corporation had been operating a factory since 1917 in which the dials of clocks were painted with radioactive luminous paint. The young workers, who later became known as Radium Girls , were contaminated with large amounts of radium due to the complete lack of protective measures and some of them suffered severe damage to health, a number of them even died. After Harrison Stanford Martland , chief medical examiner in Essex County , found the radioactive noble gas radon (a decay product of radium) in the air the Radium Girls breathed , he turned to Charles Norris and Alexander O. Gettler. In 1928, Gettler succeeded in detecting a high concentration of radium in the bones of Amelia Maggia, one of the young women, even five years after her death.

Carbon monoxide deaths

Town gas , which was previously used in households for lighting, cooking and heating, contained carbon monoxide and was therefore responsible for numerous deaths. In 1925 alone, Norris counted 618 fatal accidents caused by unintentional carbon monoxide poisoning , plus 388 suicides and three murders .

As part of their professional activities, Norris and Gettler were able to convict several murderers who had poisoned their victims with carbon monoxide, but also saved innocents from conviction.

In December 1926, Francesco Travia was arrested while trying to dispose of the dismembered body of Anna Fredericksen. Travia said he had whiskey with the woman in his apartment and then fell asleep. When he woke up, Fredericksen had been lying dead next to him and he thought he had killed her intoxicated. Although Dr. Norris concluded that the woman had died of carbon monoxide from Travia's gas stove (which was also responsible for Travia's unconsciousness), Travia was charged with the murder. However, Norris and Gettler managed to prove his innocence. Travia was acquitted of murder charges and convicted only of the illegal disposal of corpses.

Poisoned alcohol during prohibition

Norris was one of the staunch opponents of Prohibition in the United States , as the evasion into illegality ( illicit distillery ) led to numerous poisonings. According to his estimates, around 10,000 deaths from methanol and denaturants occurred in the course of Prohibition, 31 of them at Christmas 1926 in New York alone. That is why he called Prohibition “our national extermination experiment”.

On February 12, 1927 Norris was elected to the Presidium of the Advisory Board of the Association Against Impure Liquor (German: "Advisory Committee of the Society against Contaminated Spirits"). In this society, doctors, hospital operators and pharmacists had come together to fight against the poisoned alcohol.

Corruption allegations and death

In May 1935, Norris was publicly accused by the newly elected Mayor of New York, Fiorello LaGuardia , of embezzling nearly $ 200,000. After almost a month, however, the investigators found that Norris had not only embezzled any money, but on the contrary had supported his agency with considerable sums of money from his own pocket.

In June 1935, Norris, who was already in poor health, went on a long-planned trip to South America. After his return, his condition worsened. He died on the evening of September 11, 1935.

literature

  • Deborah Blum: The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York. Penguin Press, 2010, ISBN 978-0143118824 .
  • Colin Evans: Blood On The Table: The Greatest Cases of New York City's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Berkley, New York 2008, ISBN 978-0425219379 .

Web links

Commons : Charles Norris  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ WG Eckert: Charles Norris (1868-1935) and Thomas A. Gonzales (1878-1956), New York's forensic pioneers. In: The American journal of forensic medicine and pathology. Volume 8, Number 4, December 1987, ISSN  0195-7910 , pp. 350-353, PMID 3324752 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f The Poisoner's Handbook (copy of a documentary broadcast on PBS ).
  3. ^ Colin Evans: Blood On The Table: The Greatest Cases of New York City's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Berkley, New York 2008, ISBN 978-0425219379 .
  4. ↑ Deborah Blum: Looney Gas and Lead Poisoning: A Short, Sad History .
  5. ^ William G. Eckert: Dr. Harrison Stanford Martland (1883-1954). The American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology, Vol. 2 No. March 1, 1981.
  6. ↑ Deborah Blum: The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York. Penguin Press, 2010.
  7. ↑ Deborah Blum: Forensic science was not always CSI-style teamwork , The Guardian , September 23, 2010.
  8. ↑ Deborah Blum: The Chemist's War: The Little-told Story of How the US Government Poisoned Alcohol During Prohibition with Deadly Consequences. .
  9. ↑ Norris Heads Fight On Impure Liquor. The New York Times , February 13, 1927.
personal data
SURNAME Norris, Charles
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American coroner, forensic toxicology pioneer
DATE OF BIRTH 4th December 1867
PLACE OF BIRTH Hoboken, New Jersey
DATE OF DEATH September 11, 1935
Place of death New York City