This article is dedicated to the memory of the outstanding Russian forensic doctor and literary figure professor D.E. Min on the occasion of his 200th birthday anniversary. The assignment of D.E. Min to the position of the head of Department of the State Medical Practice at the Emperor's Moscow University coincided with the large-scale judiciary reform carried out in the country at that time which envisaged, among other innovations, the practice of questioning of an expert in the court room. The new developments in the practical expert activities required the revision of the former approaches to the education and training of forensic medical experts. D.E. Min was the first to introduce the practice of public defense of expert judgements by the students of the Department as an indispensable component of their routine learning activities. He founded the museum of forensic medicine and pioneered the method for teaching the intravital forensic examination. D.E. Min initiated and supervised original research on mechanical asphyxia, forensic-medical toxicology, and traumatology. D.E. Min and his co-workers were frequently engaged by the agencies in charge of preliminary investigation to participate in forensic medical expertise associated with the inquiries into the most lurid criminal cases of those times. The scientist made the essential contribution to the development of forensic medicine in this country and the modernization of the academic process at the Department of the State Medical Practice that greatly promoted satisfaction of the basic requirements of practical forensic medical activities.