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Story of Sung Tzu and the bloody sickle. A murder was committed using a sickle. All those in the village who owned a sickle were made to bring them out and lay them in the sun. Eventually flies gathered on one particular sickle, identifying it as the murder weapon.
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In 1247 the first textbook on forensic medicine is published in China which among others things documents the procedures to be followed when investigating a suspicious death.The Chinese book His Duan Yu (The Washing Away of Wrongs) describes how to distinguish drowning from strangulation. The first recorded application of medicine to help solve crimes
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Bartolomeo da Varignana performs a medicolegal autopsy in the case of suspected murder of a nobleman.
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Dr Ambroise Paree, a French army surgeon, was the first to systematically study the effect of violent death upon the interal organs.
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The first microscope is developed.
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English physician, biologist, philosopher and historian Sir Thomas Browne discovers adipocere. What he describes as a fatty, waxy, soap-like substance formed on human corpses buried in moist, air-free places
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John Toms of Lancaster, England is convicted of murder on the basis of a torn wad of paper found in a pistol matching a remaining piece in his pocket. One of the first documented uses of physical matching.
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Sir Robert Christison publishes Treatise on Poisons, which is for many years regarded as the standard work on toxicology.
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Henry Goddard of Scotland Yard first uses bullet comparison to catch a murderer. The comparison was based in a visible flaw in the bullet, traced back to a mold.
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Dr John Davy recounts experiments with dead soldiers using a mercury thermometer. One of the first attempts to determine time since death using body temperature
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In 1877, American Thomas Taylor, suggested that markings from the tips of a persons fingers could be used for identification in criminal cases.
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Juan Vucetich developed a fingerprint classification system that was used in Latin America. The system came into use in Europe and North America in 1896
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In 1901, Dr. Paul Uhlenhuth developed a method of testing blood stains, to determine if they were human.
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1940s – Dental records are compared with teeth from corpses.
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The term ‘Serial Killer’ was invented in the early 1980s, by American F.B.I. Agent Robert Ressler. He was describing a killer who killed repeatedly and obsessively, on separate occasions.
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In 1984, Sir Alec Jefferies developed the first DNA profiling test. But He published his findings later on, in 1985.
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An FBI DNA database, NIDIS, is put into practice
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In 1999 Dr. Lawrence Farwell developed the technique of ‘Farwell Brain Fingerprinting’, a new computer-based method of identifying criminals by measuring brain-wave responses to viewing relevant pictures.
