Medical jurisprudence or
legal medicine is the branch of
science and
medicine involving the study and application of scientific and medical knowledge to legal problems, such as
inquests, and in the field of
law. As
modern medicine is a legal creation, regulated by the state, and
medicolegal cases involving
death,
rape,
paternity, etc. require a medical practitioner to produce evidence and appear as an
expert witness, these two fields have traditionally been interdependent.