Gluckman, Jonathan (1914-1993), was a South African forensic pathologist who became best known as the person who performed the autopsy on the body of Steve Biko, a black South African political leader who died in police custody in 1977. His finding that Biko had sustained massive brain injuries consistent with being beaten about the head challenged the South African government’s official version of events. See Biko, Steve .
Gluckman’s findings often brought him into direct conflict with the South African government. Many lawyers acting on behalf of relatives of those who had died in detention retained his services as an expert witness. He appeared at many inquests, giving opinions that contradicted government or police statements. In 1992, despite strong government denials, he expressed the belief that the majority of the detainees he had examined had died from beatings given by “low-level policemen.”
Gluckman was a leading figure in the development of the general study of pathology in South Africa after World War II (1939-1945). He set up the country’s largest general pathology laboratory. He also founded the Transvaal Society for Pathology and wrote many articles on the subject for medical journals.
Gluckman was born in Johannesburg on Dec. 18, 1914. He studied medicine at the University of the Witwatersrand and at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. He began to specialize in pathology while serving with the South African Medical Corps in the Middle East and Italy during World War II. He died on May 25, 1993.
