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In 1247, Chinese lawyer Sung Ts'u wrote a textbook on criminal investigation, "The Washing Away of Wrongs", which recounts the story of a murder that took place in a rice field with the weapon as a sickle. The victim had been repeatedly slashed. To find the murderer, al the workers were asked to lay down their sickles. After some time, a horde of flies were attracted to a sickle, drawn to the blood and tissue residue unseen by the human eye. The killer finally confessed to his crime.
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Spanish chemist and physician Mathieu Orfila is known as the "Father of Forensic Toxicology" because he was the first to combine the science of toxicology with criminal court of law. In 1814, his book "Traite des Poisons" was published, becoming a common guideline fir murder cases with suspected us of poison.
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William Herschel is considered one of the first Europeans to recognize the use of fingerprints as identification. He used thumbprints on documents and contracts to identify workers in India.
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Alphonse Bertillon is known as the "Father of Criminal Identification" and he developed anthropometry, which uses body measurements to distinguish individuals.
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He used fingerprints to eliminate an innocent burglar suspect. Faulds and Herschel are both credited for the use of fingerprints in forensics.
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He published his first Sherlock Holmes story which is considered the first "CSI". It popularized scientific crime-detection methods.
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He conducted the first definitive study of fingerprints and their classification. He gave proof to their uniqueness and published a book Finger Prints.
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He wrote the first paper describing the application of scientific principles to the field of criminal investigation. He also published "Criminal Investigation".
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He discovered the ABO blood groups, which later led him to receive a Nobel Prize.
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He incorporated Gross’s principles within a workable crime lab and he became the founder and director of the Institute of Criminalistics at the University of Lyons, France.
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He published “Questioned Documents” and developed the principles of document examination.
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He developed a method for determining blood type from dried blood.
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He established the first crime lab in the US, in Los Angeles.
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He developed a comparison microscope which was first used to see if fired bullets came from the same gun.