Harvey Littlejohn

Henry Harvey Littlejohn, FRCS, FRSE (October 1862 – 15 August 1927) (normally just called Harvey Littlejohn during his life but posthumously largely called Henry) was a Scottish forensic scientist and medical officer, who followed in the footsteps of his father, Henry Duncan Littlejohn, and continued his adoption of tangential thinking to resolve investigations. His early years were spent at the family home, then at 40 York Place.[1]

Portrait of Harvey Littlejohn

H. H. Littlejohn adopted unusual methods of study. This included mapping instances of typhoid across Edinburgh in 1891 in conjunction with the noted map-maker, J. G. Bartholomew. The purpose of this was to track down the source of the outbreak. This technique is now common practice in police techniques to observe patterns in pursuit of crime detection.

The results, published in the Edinburgh Medical Journal in March 1891, proved the outbreak centred upon a property at Gardner's Crescent, in the west of the city, with almost all neighbouring houses becoming infected. He then tracked the original source to a batch of milk from one individual farm, tracked down all the shops that it supplied, and had all milk destroyed (compensating the shop-owners).[2]

In 1902 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Sir William Turner, Alexander Crum Brown, and Sir Thomas Richard Fraser.[3]

He was one of the first persons in the world to be appointed as Chief Police Surgeon for a city (1906).

In later life Harvey Littlejohn lived at 1 Atholl Crescent in Edinburgh's West End.[4]

He died at a nursing home in Edinburgh on 15 August 1927.[5] Henry Harvey is buried in his father's plot at Dean Cemetery.