Anatomy Timeline

By AGMELTON
  • 400

    Who determines cause of death?

    Germanic and Slavic societies made law that medical experts must be the ones to determine cause of death in crimes
  • Jan 1, 600

    First use of fingerprints

    Fingerprints used to determine identity
  • Jan 1, 1248

    First forensic science book

    First forensic science manual published by the Chinese.

  • Physical evidence used for the first time

    First recorded instance of matching of evidence leading to a murder conviction

  • Poison Investigation

    German chemist Valentin Ross developed a method of detecting arsenic in a victim's stomach, which led to advancement in the investigation of poison deaths

  • First use of photos in identification

    San Francisco uses photography for criminal identification, the first U.S. city to do so.

  • Blood Markers

    Human blood grouping, ABO, discovered by Karl Landsteiner and adapted for use on bloodstains by Dieter Max Richter

  • School of Forensics

    First school of forensic science founded by Rodolphe Archibald Reiss, in Switzerland

  • First Police Crime Lab

    First police crime lab established in Los Angeles

  • Facial sketches matched to photos

    Software developed by Michigan State University that allows hand-drawn facial sketches to be matched to mug shots stored in data bases