宋慈长期担任地方司法官员，四任提点刑狱，负责审理刑狱、检验命案。他总结前人检验经验与自身实践，撰成《洗冤集录》，系统记录尸体检验、死因判断、现场勘查等方法，是世界上现存最早的系统法医学专著，比西方同类著作早数百年。需要说明的是，法医学属于司法鉴定领域，与本厅其他以临床诊疗见长的医家角度不同，此处收录取其「医」的广义范畴。

Song Ci served for years as a judicial official, holding the post of Circuit Judicial Commissioner four times and overseeing the investigation of criminal cases. Drawing on earlier forensic practice and his own casework, he compiled the Collected Cases of Injustice Rectified, systematically documenting methods of post-mortem examination, cause-of-death determination, and crime-scene investigation — the world's earliest surviving systematic treatise on forensic medicine, predating comparable Western works by centuries. Note: forensic medicine sits in the domain of judicial examination rather than clinical treatment; he is included here under medicine's broader historical scope.