The history of a subject is always considered as the key to the past, explanation of the present and/or signpost for the future. An effort has been made to provide brief details of the early developments in this specialty through the different centuries as an aide memoir to those researching its historical background. Existing records confirm an interaction between legal and medical matters and this is to be found in the histories of the Sumerian, Babylonian, Indian, Egyptian, Assyrian civilisations apart from Chinese and Indian data on Materia Medica which include in them information on many poisons. It has been accepted widely that the Indus Valley Civilisation (3250-200 BC) is much more ancient than written chronicles on Indian history. Forensic medicine as it is practised today in India has attained its present state of development and high probity by passing through several phases of evolution.