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On June 1, 1939 a law was enacted in the state of Maryland removing the investigation of unexpected, unusual and violent deaths from the hands of the coroner and a lay jury and setting up instead a more modern system, creating the office of chief medical examiner and providing for medical deputies in each county.Responsibility for the kinds of cases formerly handled by the coroner was transferred to the newly created office of medical examiner. The deputy medical examiner, as he is termed in the counties outside Baltimore, is appointed by the Maryland Post Mortem Commission from a list submitted by his county medical society. He is charged under the new law to view the body of the deceased at the scene of death and to examine the circumstances leading to death "when any person shall die as a result of violence, or by suicide, or by casualty, or