Forensic Science Timeline: Ancient Times to Modern History

• Karl Landsteiner (1868-1943), a pathologist of Vienna, discovered isoagglutinin in human blood cells and blood serum and established the existence of three main blood groups.
• In 1901 he published his findings in Wiener klinische Wochenschrift and predicted that further study of blood groups would bring important results in forensic medicine.
• He was awarded the Nobel prize for his work in 1930.
• Landsteiner’s continued work on detecting blood, its species, and its type formed the basis of practically all subsequent work.

• In 1901, Sir Edward Richard Henry became the head of Scotland Yard and adopted the Galton-Henry fingerprint identification system to replace previously used Anthropometry.
• Henry P. DeForrest pioneered the first systematic use of fingerprintsFingerprint, impression made by the papillary ridges on the ends of the fingers and thumbs. Fingerprints afford an infallible means of personal identification, because the ridge arrangement on every finger of every human being is unique and does not alter with growth or age. Fingerprints serve to reveal an individual’s true identity despite personal denial, assumed names, or changes in personal appearance resulting from age, disease, plastic surgery, or accident. The practice of utilizing fingerprints as a means of identification, referred to as dactyloscopy, is an indispensable aid to modern law enforcement. More in the United States by the New York Civil Service Commission.

• Precipitin Test: A German immunologist, Paul Uhlenhuth (1870–1957), at that time an assistant at the Hygienic Institute of the University of Greifswald, Germany, devises a method to distinguish between human and animal blood known as the precipitin test, which distinguishes between human and animal blood.
• He published his discovery in Deutsche medizinische Wochenschrift 27: 82-3, 260-1, 7 Feb 1901. His discovery laid the basis for forensic serology.
• The test was used in the murder conviction of Ludwig Tessnow in the same year. He was also one of the first to institute standards, controls, and QA/QC procedures.
• The first court test of his discovery was in Berlin in 1904; the jury accepted the experiment’s results.
• Max Richter adapted the technique to type bloodstains. This is one of the first instances of performing validation experiments specifically to adopt a method for forensic science.

Harry Jackson, a burglar, becomes the first Englishman to be convicted solely based on fingerprint evidence.

Professor R.A. Reiss, professor at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, and a pupil of Bertillon, set up one of the first academic curricula in forensic science. His forensic photography department grew into the Lausanne Institute of Police Science.

In 1903 two convicts with the same name and same anthropometry (Bertillon) measurements are found in Fort Leavenworth prison. Two years later, their fingerprints are found to distinguish between them clearly. This case of Will and William West effectively ended the Bertillon System in favor of Fingerprints for identification.

The New York City Police Department started to create fingerprint files of criminals for identification. This system is adopted by the New York State Prison system two years later.

Edmond Locard formulates his famous principle, “Every contact leaves a trace,” in his published book L’enquete criminelle et les methodes scientifique.

Oskar and Rudolf Adler developed a presumptive test called Benzidine test for blood based on benzidine, a new chemical developed by Merk.

Bite mark evidence is first used in an English court to convict two hungry burglars using teeth marks found in cheese at the scene.

President Theodore Roosevelt and attorney general Bonaparte started the F.B.I. (Federal Bureau of Investigation) with about 34 people to work for his new investigative agency. The agency’s first official task was to visit and make surveys of houses of prostitution, preparing to enforce the “White Slave traffic act.”

• Victor Balthazard, professor of forensic medicine at the Sorbonne, with Marcelle Lambert, published the first comprehensive hair study, Le poil de l’homme et des Animaux, including microscopic studies from most animals. Following this study, in first-ever legal case cases involving hairs, Rosella Rousseau was convinced to confess to the murder of Germaine Bichon.
• Document Examination Principles: American Albert Osborne (1858-1946), an American and arguably the most influential document examiner, published document examination principles in his treatise Questioned Documents.

• Edmund Locard (1877-1966), successor to Lacassagne as professor of forensic medicine at the University of Lyons, France, established the first police crime laboratory in conjunction with the Lyon Police Department.
• He researched and perfected forensic science techniques throughout his tenure working in the crime lab, including fingerprinting. One of the most notable contributions to forensic science was the Locards Exchange Principle which states: “It is impossible for a criminal to act, especially considering the intensity of the crime, without leaving traces of the presence.”

Thomas Jennings becomes the first U.S. citizen convicted of a crime by fingerprints evidence.

1912: Masaeo Takayama developed another microscopic crystal test for hemoglobin using hemo-chromogen crystals.

Victor Balthazard (1872-1950) realizes that tools used to make gun barrels never leave the same markings, and individual gun barrels leave identifying grooves on each bullet fired through it. Balthazard used photographic enlargements of bullets and cartridge cases to determine weapon type and was the first to publish an article on individualizing bullet markings.

Italian professor at the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Turin, Italy, Leone Lattes (1887-1954), developed a method for determining the blood group of dried bloodstains. He first used the test in casework to resolve a marital dispute. Then, he published L’Individualità del sangue nella biologia, nella clinica, nella medicina, legale, the first book dealing with clinical issues and heritability, paternity, and typing of dried stains.

• International Association for Criminal Identification, which later became The International Association of Identification (I.A.I.), was organized in Oakland, California.

The state of New York adopts the medical examiner system. The Office of Coroner was abolished in New York and replaced by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York. The first Chief Medical Examiner appointed was Dr. Charles Norris (1867-1934)

Albert Schneider of Berkeley, California, first used a vacuum apparatus to collect trace evidence.

Edmond Locard first suggested 12 matching points as positive fingerprint identification.

• Goddard and Fisher developed the helixometer, a magnifier probe used to examine the interior of firearm barrels and accurately measure the pitch of rifling.
• The Sacco and Vanzetti case brought ballistics to the public’s attention. The case highlights the value of the newly developed comparison microscope.
• Calvin Goddard perfected the comparison microscope in bullet comparison with Charles E Waite, Phillip O. Gravelle, and John H Fisher.
• Charles E. Waite was the first to catalog manufacturing data about weapons.

German Investigator, Georg Popp, pioneered botanical and soil identification in forensic work to find evidence of contamination.

Russian paleontologist Michael Gerasimov develops a method to reconstruct facial appearance from a skull. He was later popularized as Andreev, a character in the detective novel Gorky Park.