forensic timeline

Use of fingerprints for the first time (600s) Fingerprints first used to determine identity. Arabic merchants would take a debtor's fingerprint and attach it to the bill.

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

Mesopotamians perform animal autopsies in order to communicate with divine forces.

First forensic autopsies are done at the University of Bologna.

Pope Clement VI(1291–1352) orders autopsies on victims of the Black Death to hopefully find a cause for the plague.

Sung Tz’u publishes Hsi Yuan Lu (The Washing Away of Wrongs), the first forensic text.

They built medical schools

First autopsies in North America are done by French settlers on St. Croix Island.

University of Leipzig offers the first courses in forensic medicine.

Giovanni Morgagni (1682–1771) first correlates autopsy findings to various diseases.

Paul Revere recognizes dentures he had made for his friend Dr. Joseph Warren and thus identifies the doctor’s body in a mass grave at Bunker Hill.

ohann Metzger develops a method for isolating arsenic.

1810: The first use of document examination in a criminal investigation involves the analysis of ink dye on a document known as Konigin Hanschritt in Germany.

1823: Johannes Purkinje (1787–1869) devises the first crude fingerprint classification system.

Karl Landsteiner (1868–1943) delineates the ABO blood typing system.

Harry Jackson becomes the first person in England to be convicted by fingerprint evidence.

Britain's Forensic Science Service develops online footwear coding and detection system. This helps police to identify footwear marks quickly.

Faster DNA IDs Technology speeds up DNA profiling time, from 6-8 weeks to between 1-2 days.