ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses career and experiences of world-renowned forensic scientist, Dr. Douglas Lucas. Fire and explosion investigations were the principal additional activity, but other things that had the potential to produce some laboratory evidence also came in our door. Douglas was always impressed with the curiosity of some of the detectives who would come in and ask, "Have Douglas got this case and wonder if he might be able to do something with this?" He became known as "Mr. Miscellaneous" around the lab. One of the miscellaneous types of cases was criminal abortions, which were quite common in those days when birth control was not a widely discussed topic and before the "pill" was developed. A few laypeople developed "expertise" in this procedure, using some very crude techniques. The most common of these was to inject a soap or detergent solution into the vagina of the pregnant woman and hopefully somehow free the fetus from the uterus and abort it.
