Alexander Oscar Gettler (August 13, 1883– August 4, 1968 was a toxicologist with the Office of Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York (OCME) between 1918 and 1959, and the first forensic chemist to be employed in this capacity by a U.S. city. His work at OCME with Charles Norris, the chief medical examiner, created the foundation for modern medicolegal investigation in the U.S. and Gettler has been described by peers as 'the father of forensic toxicology in America. Gettler was born in Galicia, Poland, a part of the Empire of Austria-Hungary in 1883. As Oscar Gettler, aged seven, he emigrated to the U.S. with his father, Joseph Gettler, and sister, Elise, on board the Red Star Line steamer, Westernland, which arrived at the Port of New York on May 6, 1891; they settled in Brooklyn, where he was raised.[8] He studied at the City College of New York and in 1912 received his PhD in Biochemistry from Columbia University. Prior to his employment with OCME he worked as a clinical chemist at the Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan and taught Biochemistry at the New York University School of Medicine. He married Alice Gorman in 1912. Charles Norris established the OCME in 1918 and set up his first offices in the Pathology Building (the 'City Morgue') of Bellevue Hospital. While there he asked Gettler if he would be willing to conduct any chemical testing that might be required to which Gettler agreed. An OCME laboratory, where testing was carried out for the presence of the common poisons, was set up on the third floor of the City Morgue building on First Avenue and 29th Street. Gettler often had to create new tests to isolate poisons. He regularly experimented by poisoning raw liver and attempting to isolate ever-smaller amounts of poison from it. These tests often involved mashing or liquifying tissue, followed by such tests as crystal formation, melting and boiling point analysis, color reactions, and titration. In 1935, Gettler was the first scientist to use a spectrometer in a criminal investigation in order to prove that the four children of Brooklyn bookkeeper Frederick Gross were victims of copper poisoning and not thallium. Gettler often had to work for low pay, due to severe budget cuts to the toxicology office. In addition to this, Gettler also wrote numerous papers on isolating poisons such as benzene from human bodies.