Konrad HÄNDEL, who was personally acquainted with four generations of primarily German specialist colleagues, wrote in 1983: "The term used to denote the science that is nowadays known as legal medicine has undergone many reformulations. There are now more than twenty synonyms in use in the German-speaking world, including Latin terms such as medicina legalis, medicina forensis, and several German ones, including Gerichtliche Arzneiwissenschaft [judicial pharmacology], Gerichtliche Medizin [judicial medicine], Gerichtliche und Soziale Medizin [judicial and social medicine], Gerichtliche Medizin und Kriminalistik [judicial medicine and criminology], and since October 1968, Rechtsmedizin [legal medicine]. The specialist term used in the majority of European states therefore now also applies in Germany.

There are several indications that judicial medical activities were carried out in antiquity. For example, around 2700 BC, a post mortem was conducted in Egypt during the reign of IMHOTEP to establish a cause of death, and around 1700 BC under Chammurapi of Babylon, doctors were punished for medical malpractice under Law 218. Further indications stem from later antiquity, such as the Corpus Iuris Civilis, set up by the East Roman Emperor JUSTINIAN. The first real treatment of legally relevant matters began in the late Middle Ages, with VESALIUS, CODRONCHI, FIDELIS, Felix PLATTER I., PARÈ and ZACCHIAS, two of whom worked in Basel, while the others were based in Italy and France. Excellent works followed in the 17th and 18 centuries in central Germany, written by Paul AMMANN, Gottfried WELSCH, Johannes BOHN – who first coined the term "Gerichtliche Medizin" [judicial medicine] – Johann Ernst HEBENSTREIT, Christian Gottlieb LUDWIG, Einst PLATTNER, Michael ALBERTI, Hermann Friedrich TEICHMEYER, Johann Friedrich FASELIUS and Michael Bernhard Edler von VALENTINI. They were joined in the north of Germany by Albrecht v. HALLER, Johann Gottfried BRENDEL, Gottlieb Heinrich KANNENGIEßER, Christian Ehrenfried ESCHENBACH and Ludwig Julius Caspar MENDE, the latter publishing an exhaustive six-volume handbook of judicial medicine for legislators and jurists, doctors and surgeons.

By now, there was a clearly discernable concentration of scientific and practical proponents of our field in Central Europe. Beginning in the late 18th century, the trend was supported by the Austria's adoption of its 'Emergency Police' laws, for which Johann Peter FRANK, was a strong advocate. It was he who merged judicial medicine with the Medical Police and the public health service, to form the field of "state pharmacopoeia". This continued until hygiene and bacteriology began to flourish, whereby Max v. PETTENKOFER said in 1867: "the merging of judicial medicine and Medical Police has always had the appearance of an unnatural pairing of two forces." Eduard Ritter v. HOFMANN was the first to detach himself from the Medical Police, when, in 1876 he took up a chair in Vienna. The cradle of the discipline has been in Vienna since 1905 as well as in Prague since 1807.