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1247
First case of Forensic Entomology solved
A case recorded in 13th Century showed that a bloodied knife was used as a murder weapon due to the fact that it was covered with flies after the murder. -
Mathieu Orfila
Orfila tested many poisons on animals, controversially, to figure out how they affect the human body -
William Herschel
Used the concept of thumbprints to keep tabs on workers in British India, and discovered that they were useful for identifcation -
Alphonse Bertillon
Discovered Anthropometry, which is the study of using the measurements of people's bodies to prove their guiltiness or innocence -
Henry Faulds
The first person to clear someone of a crime by using their fingerprint to prove them innocent -
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Not a forensic scientist, but responsible for bringing forensic science into the public eye by writing his "Sherlock Holmes" series -
Francis Galton
Galton was the progenitor of modern fingerprint analysis with his study "Finger Prints," which proved that fingerprints were unique -
Hans Gross
Published a paper called "Criminal Investigation," in which he revolutionized criminology by applying the scientific method to forensics -
Karl Landsteiner
Received a Nobel Prize for his work with human blood, due to his discovery of the ABO blood groups, but not the AB group -
Edmond Locard
Famously incorporated Gross's principles of scientific criminology in a laboratory, and eventually founded the Institute of Criminalistics in Lyons, France -
Albert S. Osborn
Published a thesis called "Questioned Documents." This led to the formal development of scientific document analysis -
Leone Lattes
Famously figured out how to determine blood type from dried blood, according to Landsteiner's principles -
August Vollmer
Vollmer set up the first ever, official, American crime lab in LA, California -
Calvin Goddard
Originally intended for comparing bullet size and ballistics, the first ever comparison microscope came from Goddard
