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1249
13th Century China
Song Ci introduced regulations concerning autopsy reports to court, how to protect the evidence in the examining process, and explained why forensic workers must demonstrate impartiality to the public. -
Mathieu Orfila
If there is reason to believe that a murder or attempted murder may have been committed using poison, a forensic toxicologist is often brought in to examine pieces of evidence such as corpses and food items for poison content. In Orfila's time the primary type of poison in use was arsenic, but there were no reliable ways of testing for its presence. Orfila created new techniques and refined existing techniques in his first treatise -
William Herschel
Herschel is credited with being the first European to note the value of fingerprints for identification. He recognized that fingerprints were unique and permanent. Herschel documented his own fingerprints over his lifetime to prove permanence. He was also credited with being the first person to use fingerprints in a practical manner. -
Alphonse Bertillon
Alphonse Bertillon was a French police officer and biometrics researcher who applied the anthropological technique of anthropometry to law enforcement creating an identification system based on physical measurements. He is also the inventor of the mug shot. Photographing of criminals began in the 1840s only a few years after the invention of photography, but it was not until 1888 that Bertillon standardized the process -
Henry Faulds
The method of identifying criminals by their fingerprints had been introduced in the 1860s by Sir William James Herschel in India, and their potential use in forensic work was first proposed by in 1880. Galton, following the idea written by Faulds, which he failed to credit, was the first to place the study on a scientific footing, which assisted its acceptance by the courts. The Japanese police officially adopted the fingerprinting system in 1911 -
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, has long been credited as an influence to forensic science due to his character's use of methods such as fingerprints, serology, ciphers, trace evidence, and footprints long before they were commonly used by actual police forces -
Francis Galton
he went on to create the first scientific footing for the study (which assisted its acceptance by the courts) although Galton did not ever give credit that the original idea was not his. Galton pointed out that there were specific types of fingerprint patterns. He described and classified them into eight broad categories: 1: plain arch, 2: tented arch, 3: simple loop, 4: central pocket loop, 5: double loop, 6: lateral pocket loop, 7: plain whorl, and 8: accidental. -
Hans Gross
A criminal jurist, Gross made a mark as the creator of the field of criminality. Throughout his life, Hans Gross made significant contributions to the realm of scientific criminology. As Gross developed in his career as an examining justice, he noticed the failings of the field of law. His book, classes, institutions, and methods helped improve the justice system through his experience as a justice. -
Karl Landsteiner
one of Landsteiner's students found a fourth blood type, AB, which triggered a reaction if introduced into either A or B blood. AB-type individuals have A and B antigens on their red blood cells but no anti-A or anti-B antibodies. Therefore, AB-type individuals can safely receive blood from individuals of any blood type, but they cannot safely donate to anyone other than AB-type individuals. For his discovery of blood groups, Landsteiner received the 1930 Nobel Prize -
Edmond Locard
Dr Edmond Locard was a French criminalist renowned for being a pioneer in forensic science and criminology, often informally referred to as the “Sherlock Holmes of France”. Whilst studying medicine he developed an interest in the application of science to legal matters, writing his thesis on Legal Medicine under the Great King -
Albert S. Osborn
His seminal book Questioned Documents was first published in 1910 and later heavily revised as a second edition in 1929. Osborn is also known for founding the (ASQDE) on September 2, 1942. In 1913 Osborn began inviting select practitioners to informal educational gatherings hosted in his home and those meetings eventually led to formation of the ASQDE. He became the society's first president and was involved intimately with the discipline and Society until his death four years later. -
Leone Lattes
italian scientist who devised a procedure by which dried blood stains could be restored and grouped in the blood type categories A, B, AB, or O -
August Vollmer
established one of the first modern crime laboratories in the United States in 1923. Vollmer recognized the need to establish a reliable way of analyzing clues from a crime scene -
Calvin Goddard
developed the comparison microscope for the identification of fired bullets and cartridge cases with the support and guidance of Major Calvin H. Goddard. It was a giant leap in the science of firearms identification in forensic science. The firearm from which a bullet or cartridge case has been fired is identified by the comparison of the unique striae left on the bullet or cartridge case from the worn, machined metal of the barrel, breach block, extractor, or firing pin in the gun
