A figure in Lyon medicine, Alexandre Lacassagne was a forensic doctor, founder of criminal anthropology, expert in the courts, who helped to clarify medical ethics. Born in Cahors in 1843, he studied medicine in Strasbourg at the Imperial School of Military Health Service, before joining Lyon in 1878, where he became professor of forensic medicine (and remained so until his retirement in 1913 ).

Throughout his career, he was fascinated by criminology, the reasons that lead an individual to commit murder. He frequents morgues, prisons and the courthouse. His quest for answers leads him to analyze bodies and their wounds; he is particularly interested in the way in which revolver bullets enter chairs. Thus, he was able to deduce that she was the murder weapon…

Creator of the first French journal of criminology

An expertise which at the time made it possible to solve crimes like that of President Sadi Carnot in 1894 in Lyon. A tragic episode following the Lyonnais founds with Gabriel Tarde, Parisian psychologist and sociologist, the first French review of criminology in 1895.

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All his life, Alexandre Lacassagne never stopped working with the police and the courts. He died in 1924 at the age of 81 of a head injury, a few months after being run over by a motorist. The fact was revealed by an autopsy, to which he had consented before dying.

Penelope Jobert and Veronique Lopes

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