This article is devoted to the life and professional activities of the internationally renowned forensic doctor Ivan Ivanovich Neiding who became widely known in the early youth as the discoverer of the microscopic diagnostic features of the constriction marks formed in association with hanging and strangulation. During more than 22 years (from 1878 till 1900), I.I. Neiding acted as the head of the Department of Forensic medicine at the Moscow University where a large number of investigations on forensic medical ballistics, toxicology, obstetric and gynecological expertise were carried out under his supervision. At the time when I.I. Neiding headed the Department, the academic process was for the first time organized in the form of the specialized studies conducted by concrete specialists. Ivan Ivanovich Neiding himself was actively involved in the practical expert work and participated in the development of the procedural basis of the forensic medical expertise. In the hard times of political reaction, he managed to strengthen the role and position of the Department that was officially redesignated as the research institute.