Forensic Science & Autopsy Timeline

First Autopsy

44 BCE

Performed by Antistius, a Roman physician. Report shows 23 stab wounds, with one stroke between the first and second ribs to be the actual fatal stroke.

First Forensic Science Book

Jan 1, 1248

First forensic science manual published by the Chinese. This was the first known record of medical knowledge being used to solve criminal cases.

Arsenic Testing

Mar 11, 1836

Researchers developed toxicology as a specialized field of forensic medicine, and devised specific tests for poison, most famously the 1836 Marsh Test for arsenic.

Fingerprints

Jan 1, 1860

The first practical application of fingerprinting as a unique individual identifier came in the 1860s. Sir William Herschel, a colonial administrator in British India, used fingerprints to detect false pension claims.

Hair is used as Evidence

Jan 1, 1910

Victor Balthazard and Marcelle Lambert publish first study on hair, including microscopic studies from most animals. First legal case ever involving hair also took place following this study

Discovery that Guns are Unique

Jan 1, 1912

Victor Balthazard 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. He developed several methods of matching bullets to guns via photography

Polygraph

Jan 1, 1921

The polygraph was invented in 1921 by John Augustus Larson, a medical student at the University of California, Berkeley and a police officer of the Berkeley Police Department in Berkeley, California.

Use of Ballistics to Solve a Crime

Jan 1, 1929

A group of mobsters dressed as policemen executed seven men in Chicago. Goddard showed that the bullets did not come from police issued firearms, which led to the arrest of those who committed the crime

FIrst FBI Crime Lab

Jan 1, 1932

Established in 1932 and continues to be at the forefront of criminal investigation and research into new techniques

Voice Recording as Evidence

Jan 1, 1960

A sound spectrograph discovered to be able to record voices. Voiceprints began to be used in investigations and as court evidence from recordings of phones, answering machines, or tape recorders.