ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the relationship between late Victorian detective fiction and medical discourse, relating it to questions of purity through two interlinked perspectives. Ellis argues that a particularly British division between medicine and criminal policy, combined with the dominance of the classical model of jurisprudence, militated against a coherent approach to criminal anthropology. It discusses as one correspondent to the Lancet argued in 1870: such attitudes are perpetuated in Meade's detective fiction distinguishes her work from Grant Allen's medical detective serial Hilda Wade. The eventual murder proves her theory right, but only the reader of Hilda Wade appreciates the cost; the presence of pain justifies Wade's act of detection. Rothfield argues: The act of detection is intrusive it uncovers secrets that have hitherto remained concealed. The chapter concentrates on the ambivalent reception of criminal anthropology in British scientific and fictional writing, challenging previous readings of popular fiction which often seen it as acting in collaboration with such determinist theories.
