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Hey, this is a time line, but that's obvious.
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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. In one of the first cases involving hairs, Rosella
Rousseau was convinced to confess to murder of Germaine Bichon. Balthazard also used photographic enlargements
of bullets and cartridge cases to determining weapon type and was among the first to attempt to individualize a bullet
to a weapon. -
Edmund Locard, successor to Lacassagne as professor of forensic medicine at the University of Lyons, France,
established the first police crime laboratory. -
Albert S. Osborne, an American and arguably the most influential document examiner, published Questioned
Documents. -
Masaeo Takayama developed another microscopic crystal test for hemoglobin using hemochromogen crystals.
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Victor Balthazard, professor of forensic medicine at the Sorbonne, published the first article on individualizing bullet
markings. -
Leone Lattes, professor at the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Turin Italy, developed the first antibody test for ABO
blood groups. He first used the test in casework to resolve a marital dispute. He published L’Individualità del sangue
nella biologia, nella clinica, nella medicina, legale, the first book dealing not only with clinical issues, but heritability,
paternity, and typing of dried stains. -
International Association for Criminal Identification, (to become The International Association of Identification
(IAI), was organized in Oakland, California. -
Albert Schneider of Berkeley, California first used a vacuum apparatus to collect trace evidence.
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Edmond Locard first suggested 12 matching points as a positive fingerprint identification.
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Georg Popp pioneered the use of botanical identification in forensic work.
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Luke May, one of the first American criminalists, pioneered striation analysis in tool mark comparison, including an
attempt at statistical validation. In 1930 he published The identification of knives, tools and instruments, a positive
science, in The American Journal of Police Science. -
Calvin Goddard, with Charles Waite, Phillip O. Gravelle, and John H Fisher, perfected the comparison microscope
for use in bullet comparison. -
Charles E. Waite was the first to catalog manufacturing data about weapons.
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John Larson and Leonard Keeler designed the portable polygraph.
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Vittorio Siracusa, working at the Institute of Legal Medicine of the R. University of Messina, Italy, developed the
absorbtion-elution test for ABO blood typing of stains. Along with his mentor, Lattes also performed significant work
on the absorbtion-inhibition technique. -
In Frye v. United States, polygraph test results were ruled inadmissible. The federal ruling introduced the concept of
general acceptance and stated that polygraph testing did not meet that criterion.
