History of Forensic

Events

3rd Century Forensic Science

201 AD - 300 AD

Chinese autospy chemist would test pigs lungs and intestine for verification of smoke ingestion. This would use to determine cause of death for humans in china.

Before 17th century

1600 - 1699

Guilty person would confess under torture, while god will give the strength for innocent people to resist torture

Carl W. Scheele

1775

Swedish Chemist devised a test for detecting Arsenic in corpses (the inheritance powder)

Chemical Test (Valentin Ross)

1806

Valentin Ross (German) discovered more precise method for detecting small amounts of Arsenic

Chemical Test ( Mathieu Orilla)

1814

Mathieu Orilla aka Father of forensic toxicology published article on detection of poisons and effect

Microscopes

1828

Polarizing microscopes invented

1st use of toxicology evidence in criminal trial

1839

First-time toxicology was used as evidence in criminal court trial

Microscopes sperm

1839

First microscopic detection of sperm

Photographs

1850 - 1860

Pictures were used to detail and record accurate crime scenes

1st presumptive test for blood

1863

Presumptive test for blood

Alphonse Bertillion

1879

Alphonse introduced the Bertillion method aka (anthropometry)
A system used to identify people by their physical appearance and was considered most accurate method for personal identifcation for nearly two decades. Was replaced by fingerprints in 1903

Sherlock Holmes

1887 - 1893

The most inluential fictional character created
by author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; his inluence
can be compared to that of the modern CSI shows.
Led to the creation of forensic movies and shows.
today

Jack the ripper

1888

London terrorized by a serial killer who targeted prostitutes because of the embarrsement of his gentials

Criminal investigation

1893

Hans Gross (Austrian) published; the 1st book of criminal investigation using
forensic science

Walter McCrone

1900 - 1999

Father of microscopy. Walter was able identify almost every object inside a microscope. He was the expert of microscopes and helped forensic scientists examine different object during criminal cases

ABO blood typing discovered by Karl Landsteiner

1901

Discovered that blood types range from A, B, AB, O that is classified in all individuals

Will west case

1903

Case of misidentiication of two men whose
Bertillon's measurements were nearly identical between these two criminals.
It led to the end of Anthropometry

Questioned Documents

1910

published by Albert Osborn, the question docuemnts are essentially handwriting analysis that was used to examine indivudials unique handwriting

Locard's Exchange Principle

1913

When 2 objects come into contact with each other, a cross‑
transfer of materials occurs that can connect a criminal suspect to the victim or the crime scene. Locard also started the first known police crime lab.

Los Angeles PD Crime Lab

1923

The first ever crime lab was built in USA

University of California at Berkeley

1930

Criminalistics Department led by Dr. Paul Kirk

FBI National Laboratory

1932

Opens under Director J. Edgar Hoover, one of the largest and most comprehensive crime labs in the world. Operating out of a state-of-the-art facility in Quantico, VA

FBI Forensic Science Research & Training Center

1981

FBI Research and Training Center opened to train and teach young forensic scientist skills needed in real life criminal scenes