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Swedish Chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele devised the first successful test for detecting poison arsenic in corpses.
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His work "A Treatsie on Forensic Medicine and Public Health" was published in 1798
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He discovered a more precise method for detecting small amounts of arsenic in the walls of a victim's stomach.
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Mathieu Orfila, the father of toxicology, published the first scientific Treatsie on the detection of poisons and their effects on animals. This Treatsie established established forensic toxicology as a legitimate scientific endeavor.
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He invented the polarizing micrscope.
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He formulated the first procedures for microscopic detection of sperm. In 1853, he developed the first microcrystalline test for hemoglobin. And in 1863, he developed the first presumptive test for blood.
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Toxicological evidence at a trial was first used when Marsh testified on the detection of arsenic in a victims body.
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Anthropology and morphology were applied to the first system of personal identification devised by Bertillon. He system was a systematic procedure that involved taking a series of body measurements as a means of distinguishing one person from another. He was Leo known as the father of criminal identification.
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Created the fictional character, Sherlock Holmes.
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He undertook the first definitive study of fingerprints and developed a methodology of classifying them for filing. He also published a book, which contained the first statistical proof supporting the uniqueness of his method of personal identification.
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He wrote the first Treatsie describing the application of scientific disciplines to the field of criminal investigation.
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He discovered that blood can be grouped in different categories, ex: A, AB, B, and O.
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He first demonstrated how the principles enunciated by Gross could be incorporated within a workable crime lab. He also created the Locard exchange principle that basically states when two objects come in contact with one another, there is an exchange of materials between them.
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He devised a relatively simple procedure for determining the blood group of a dried bloodstain.
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He refined the techniques of firearms examination by using the comparison microscope (ballistics).
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He developed the first DNA profiling test and two years later he applied it for the first time to solve a crime scene.