Ingrid Lingmark was the first woman forensic pathologist in Sweden.
Ingrid Lingmark was born in Uppsala in 1918, the child of Rut Lingmark, née Anderson and Tage Lingmark. When Ingrid Lingmark was five years old, her younger sister Brita died at the age of only eighteen months. The youngest child in the family was Torbjörn, born in 1925.
After having matriculated in Uppsala in 1938, Ingrid Lingmark continued her studies at Uppsala University and took her Bachelor of Medicine Degree in 1942. In 1950, she completed her Licentiate Degree, which was a requirement to acquire her doctor’s licence. Towards the end of her studies, Ingrid Lingmark also worked as an assistant at the Department of Pathology at Uppsala University (now the Department of Immunology, Genetics and Pathology).
Ingrid Lingmark entered onto the path of forensic pathology after that and worked in 1951–1955 as an assistant at the National Department of Forensic Medicine in Stockholm. She also worked as a forensic pathologist and assistant director at the departments of forensic medicine in both Stockholm and Gothenburg. During the period 1945–1975, the organisation of forensic medicine and state departments of forensic medicine were set up in six towns and cities in Sweden. From 1966 onwards, she was made director at the State Department of Forensic Medicine in Umeå. Apart from her daily work, Ingrid Lingmark was also a member of the forensic medicine committee of the National Board of Health and Welfare and its scientific council from 1961.
Ingrid Lingmark acted as pathologist in several famous criminal investigations, among others after a much publicised murder of a woman in Eskilstuna in 1958. The criminal investigation is described in the book series Brottets krönika: ur kriminalpolisens annaler. There, forensic pathologist Ingrid Lingmark’s obduction and investigation of what turned out to be the murder weapon are described. The criminal investigation and obduction are described as being very meticulous work.
Ingrid Lingmark died in 1974, at 55 years of age. She lies buried in the Old Cemetery in Uppsala.
