This collection contains professional and a few personal papers of Dr. Richard O. Myers, a forensic pathologist whose career included seven years as autopsy surgeon for the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office, many years teaching forensic medicine at the University of Southern California, the University of California, Los Angeles, and at several local hospital residency programs, as well as a thriving practice as a hospital and consultant pathologist. A large part of the papers consists of notes and lectures on forensic pathology and a collection of important journal articles and clippings covering a broad spectrum of medico-legal topics. Another collection portion consists of glass lantern slide portraits of a wide array of noted scientists and physicians from ancient to 20th century times. Dr. Myers also compiled an extensive library of books on forensic and legal medicine, with special emphasis on toxicology, and ca. 150 of these volumes were added to the UCLA Biomedical Library collection. A few case studies included in this collection, plus related materials listed in the Related Materials Note, contain named patient records and are accessible only under restricted conditions.

Richard O. Myers, M.D., (1920-1995) was a pathologist with special enthusiasm for forensic pathology. He was so active and renowned in this specialty that a major author of mystery books, Earl Stanley Gardner, dedicated one of his books to him (The case of the spurious spinster, 1961). Dr. Myers felt very strongly that coroners and those performing postmortem procedures should be well trained specialists, that the forensic pathologist is "not an advocate but an unbiased scientific friend of the court", and that medical education needed not only to train more medical-legal experts, but also to teach all physicians their basic duties in relation to potential legal questions.

6 Linear Feet (4 cartons)

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