1755: First Forensic Dentist
A British bullet struck down Warren during the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775, and his corpse was buried in a mass grave. Paul Revere recognizes dentures he had made for his friend Dr. Joseph Warren and thus identifies the doctor’s body in a mass grave at Bunker Hill.
1775: First test for Arsenic
Karl Wilhelm Scheele (1742–1786) devised the first test for arsenic in corpses. Karl Scheele realized he could transform arsenious oxide into arsenious acid, which produced arsine when combined with zinc. This discovery later played a significant part in the forensic detection of arsenic.
1782: The first medicolegal Journal
The first medicolegal Journal, The Magazine fur die gerichtliche Arzeneikunde und medicinishe Polizei, was published in Berlin in 1782, by Konrad Friedsrich Uden.
1784: Physical evidence used in a criminal case
In Lancaster, England, John Toms was convicted of murder based on the torn edge of a wad of newspaper in a pistol matching a remaining piece in his pocket. This was one of the first known documented uses of physical matching.
1787: Johann Metzger develops a method for isolating arsenic.
1787: Johann Metzger (1739–1805) develops a method for isolating arsenic. He showed that if arsenic were heated with charcoal, a shiny, black “arsenic mirror” would form on the charcoal’s surface.
1789: Discovery of Adipocere.
French chemist and Politician Antoine Francois Fourcroy (1755-1809), while examining disinterred bodies from Cimitiere des Innocence (Cemetery of Innocent) in Paris in 1987, observed that some bodies buried for a long time were transformed into fatty matter. He called this phenomenon adipocere.
In 1789 he read a paper on that subject before the French Academy of Sciences. Later, Antoine Francois Fourcroy and Michel Augustin Thouret make the crucial finding that adipocere is chemically similar to soap.
1798: Treatise on Legal Medicine and Public Hygiene or Health Policy
François-Emmanuel Fodéré (1764–1835) publishes Treatise on Legal Medicine and Public Hygiene or Health Policy (Traité de médecine légale et d’hygiène publique). This six-volume treatise was a standard work of legal medicine in France during the early 19th century. This book marked a new era of legal medicine in France and the advancement of the whole field. It became widely known outside of France and established Fodere as an international authority.
