Wilfrid Derome

Early Life and Education

Wilfrid Derome was the son of Philomène Fortin and Médard Derome, a farmer. Wilfrid Derome was largely educated in Montreal, attending the Petit Séminaire de Montréal from 1890 to 1893, and the Collège Sainte-Marie from 1893 to 1896. He then attended the Collège de Joliette, completing his classical studies in 1898, earning the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree. From there he was admitted to the medical school of the Université Laval in Montreal, where he earned top grades and graduated a medical doctor in 1902. (See also Université de Montréal; Medical Education.) From 1903 to 1904, Derome interned at Montreal’s Hôpital Notre-Dame. From 1904 through 1908, Derome was the histology demonstrator at the Université Laval’s Montreal medical school.

Early Medical Career

The road to Wilfrid Derome’s career in forensic science began when he was appointed director of Hôpital Notre-Dame’s pathology laboratory in 1907. In 1908, Derome took a year’s sabbatical to specialize in forensics, studying at the Sorbonne in Paris under the direction of experts such as Léon-Henri Thoinot, Victor Balthazard and Alphonse Bertillon. Bertillon was the chief of criminal identification for the Paris police and an anthropologist who is credited for standardizing the “mug shot.” Bertillon also developed a system of recording and indexing identifying features to create a reference or record of known criminals for police. Victor Balthazard was a professor of forensic medicine at the Sorbonne and the chief medical examiner for the city of Paris. It was under Balthazard’s guidance that Derome became an expert in ballistics. This expertise would eventually lead to the publication of Derome’s Expertise en armes à feu (1929), which became a leading publication on the subject. (See also Firearms.)

After being awarded his diploma in forensic medicine and psychiatry from the Sorbonne, Derome returned to Montreal in 1909 and resumed his position as the director of the Hôpital Notre-Dame’s pathology laboratory. That same year, he was appointed chair of forensic medicine of the medical department of the Université Laval. (See also Université de Montréal.) His appointment came on the recommendation of the physician Georges Villeneuve, Derome’s former professor, who was also a forensic-medicine specialist, as well as the superintendent of the Hôpital Saint-Jean-de-Dieu (at the time Montreal’s principle psychiatric hospital). With Villeneuve’s help, Derome became a medical consultant to the Hôpital Saint-Jean-de-Dieu in 1910. In 1914, Derome was promoted to full professor at the Université Laval’s medical school. (See also Medical Education.) From 1912 through 1920, Derome was responsible for the laboratory at the Institut Bruchési, a tuberculosis clinic in Montreal founded in 1911. In 1926, Derome was promoted to run the hospital’s bacteriology, chemistry and serology laboratory. He would keep this position for the rest of his life.

Forensics Career

Shortly after his return from studying forensics in Paris, Wilfrid Derome was named an assistant specialist at the Montreal morgue. Intent on developing the field of forensics, Derome wrote articles on forensic medicine for L’Union médicale du Canada and aimed to bring France’s system of forensic investigation to Canada. At the time, Canada borrowed from the British legal tradition wherein the prosecution and defense would bring forth their own physicians to argue over the evidence. The French approach established impartial commissions to carry out formal scientific inquiries with qualified experts that would produce final reports that both prosecutors or appellants and defendants could then consult. (See also Law.) In 1909, Derome presented a motion to the Société médicale de Montréal, arguing for a reorganization of the province’s forensics system and proposing that the Quebec government establish forensic laboratories and designate forensic specialists as experts in court. It was adopted unanimously and later backed by the council of the Montreal bar, and then by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the Province of Quebec.

Derome impressed Quebec premier Lomer Gouin (who was also the province’s attorney general) of the necessity and importance of a forensic laboratory. The Laboratoire provincial de recherches médico-légales was opened in July 1914 in Montreal. Derome was the laboratory’s first director, a position he held until his death in 1931. It would be the only lab of its kind in Canada until 1928. The laboratory was state of the art in its time, though it was located above Montreal’s morgue. The morgue was located in a building owned by a funeral parlour, and the parlour’s director reportedly forbade Derome and his employees from using the main entrance.

Derome had the laboratory equipped with the scientific instruments necessary to conduct the most common analyses. These included microscopes, counterbalances and an emission spectrograph (an instrument that separates and measures the wavelengths of light emitted by a substance). Derome’s laboratory also contained a library, as well as a museum that displayed objects related to criminal cases and anatomical models. Derome became the first physician in Quebec to be authorized by the government to practise forensic analysis.

Contributions

In 1922, Derome’s laboratory was the first in North America to present the results of ethyl alcohol determination in blood (i.e., to determine the blood alcohol concentration, which in turn allows police to determine whether an individual is intoxicated). The lab also advanced toxicological analyses by developing a test to identify poisons in humans and animals.

In 1926, Derome invented the microspherometer, an instrument that allows for the detection of identifying marks on the surface of bullets. Derome also developed methods for identifying corpses and the classification of wounds. Derome’s work and laboratory grew to become well known outside of Canada: the United States’ director of the Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar Hoover, visited Derome in 1929 and in 1932, seeking his expertise in the development of the Bureau’s own forensic laboratory.

Legacy

Wilfrid Derome’s contribution to forensics and his legacy is recognized in the official name of the Sûreté du Québec’s headquarters in Montreal. (See also Québec Provincial Police; Police in Canada.)