Introduction
In the mid-1960s Robert P Brittain published a series of papers on the origin of legal medicine. When reporting on the famous criminal code of Emperor Charles V of Germany, the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina, promulgated in 1532, he wrote that ‘the code, important in the history of law generally, is a landmark of the first importance in the history of legal medicine’ and continued:
‘It has commonly been considered as the true start of legal medicine and hence Germany has been hailed as the country which gave birth to the discipline. It has been said that it caused medical men to be called on in legal matters for the first time. This is not strictly true. They had been called on before as earlier enactments show. Without in any way minimizing the advance which the Carolina represented, it would be wrong to consider it as a phenomenon which occurred without logical antecedents, and as implying that legal medicine arose by a kind of spontaneous generation.
Nearly the same had already been stated by Mende in 1819, when he wrote:
The Carolina is praised as the true mother of forensic medicine. But if one believes, as some do, that these orders had no connection with the ideas of that time and emerged completely from nothing, and if one intends to derive forensic medicine as an up to then totally unknown discipline from the Carolina, he will be heavily mistaken.
One must agree. There are older roots, even very old ones.
The Ancient World
There are indications that medicolegal matters were already being dealt with in ancient Egyptian and Babylonian times. Sidney Smith expressed the opinion that Imhotep, the adviser of Pharaoh Djoser (2720-2700 BC), priest and physician, was familiar with matters we would call medicolegal. It appears that in his era the examination of dead bodies was already customary. According to Derobert some paragraphs of the code of Hammurabi (1728-1686 BC) deal with medical malpractice. However, there is no proof that a medical speciality worthy of being called forensic medicine really existed.
The same goes for the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. The progenitor of the medical profession, the Greek Hippocrates (460-370 BC), inter alia, commented on the lethality of wounds. The first Roman law which dealt, among others, with medicolegal questions was the lex duodecim tabularum of 449 BC. It is well documented that Antistius, personal physician to Caesar, examined his corpse after he was assassinated in 44 BC and found that among 23 stab wounds only one chest wound was lethal. The famous Greek-Roman physician Galenus (AD 131-201) wrote a treatise on forensic-psychiatric problems.
However, it appears that the need of a medical expert for a court decision was not recognized at that time.
The only concrete indication that medical experts could be asked to assist in judicial decisions was found in the corpus iuris civilis of the East-Roman emperor Justinian (AD 482-565): ‘Medici non sunt proprie testes, sed majus est iudicium quam testimo-nium’. (Physicians are not ordinary witnesses, but give judgment rather than testimony.) Sidney Smith derived from this text: ‘The Justinian enactments may be held to represent the highest point of achievement in the way of defined forensic medicine in the ancient world.’ It appears that the highest point at the same time marked the end of this achievement under Roman influence.
Early Documents from Outside Europe
In India, the Artha Shastra of Kantilya was the law code of the fourth to third centuries BC. In cases of unnatural death there was an examination of the corpse. Shusruta Samhita, written between AD 200 and 300 by Shusrut, the father of Indian surgery, described forensic medicine in detail. This topic also covers toxicology. Similar texts can be found in the Baglebata and the Madhabakar in the seventh century. There is, however, no clear indication that medical witnesses played a role.
In China, in the Feng Zhen Shi (around 300 BC), a number of cases of medicolegal examination were recorded. From the tenth century, several text topics on medicolegal matters came down to us written, inter alia, by Djen Sin and by He Nin and his son He Min. In 1247 the famous text topic Xi Yuan Ji Lu (The Washing Away of Wrongs) was edited by the forensic scientist Song Ci (1186-1249). It was translated into 19 languages and republished with amendments up to the end of the nineteenth century.
In Egypt, Abu Balcer Zakaria El-Razi (865-925) edited the El-Hawi, which, among others, dealt with medicolegal problems. It was translated into Latin and is said to have been one of the nine volumes constituting the whole medical library of Paris University in 1395. In 1036, lbn Sina published Kitab El-Shiffa (The topic of Healing) and a couple of years later his second topic Ghanone Fi El-Tib (The topic of the Legal Principles of Medicine). The latter was also translated and used as a text topic in many western universities, particularly in France and Italy.
Germanic Laws
Medieval courts were an outgrowth of the tribal courts of the Germanic peoples. The tribal judges supervised the proceedings and executed the judgments rendered by the popular assemblies which met regularly throughout the year. During the development of Germanic tribal organization into territorial states, the primitive tribal courts underwent a corresponding evolution, increasing in number and becoming differentiated.
It was those Germanic peoples conquering the Roman Empire, whom the Romans called Barbarians, who for the first time laid down in written laws that courts, when evaluating wounds, had to rely on medical expertise. These so-called Leges Barbar-orum, drawn up between the fifth and ninth centuries, have so many similarities with each other that it is likely that the basic legal concepts pre-existed among the Germanic tribes and were passed on by word of mouth.
They were codified in the sequence in which the single tribes entered Roman soil: the laws of the West Goths (lex Euricianus), written down under King Eurich in 475-476, which were renewed in the sixth century (lex Visigothorum); the laws of the Burgun-dians (lex Burgundionum), codified in 480 under Gundobad; the laws of the Salian Franks (pactus legis Salicae) in 507 and of the Ribuarian Franks (pactus legis Ribvariae) during the sixth century; of the Langobards (edictus Rothari) in 643; of the Alemanni (pactus legis Alamannorum) during the first part of the seventh century, and eventually, during the eighth century, by order of Charlemagne (742-814), the laws of the Bavarians, Saxonians, Thuringians, Chamavian Franks and Frisians.
All these laws contain extensive compilations of different forms and localizations of wounds and compensations (‘Wergeld’) which had to be paid by the perpetrator. From specific phrases it can be derived that medical experts not only were required for the assessment of concrete findings but were already involved in the formulation of the wording of the laws. It is interesting that, in the Visigothic code, the physician was entitled to a statutory fee of 12 solidi for each medical student he instructed. This demonstrates that medical schools already existed at that early time.
At the beginning of the ninth century, Charlemagne established capitularies, which were a compilation of Germanic laws and of ancient Merovingian codes. They included instructions to the judges that they must seek the support of medical evidence and rely on the advice of physicians, especially in questions of blows and wounds, of infanticide and suicide, of rape, of bestiality and of divorce on the grounds of impotence.
Of these laws, only the lex Visigothorum survived until the beginning of the modern era. After the end of the reconquista in the late fifteenth century, it was even translated into Spanish and, with the name of Fuero Juzgo, came into force again. Many of the other laws were also renewed at later times, but no revised versions appeared after the tenth century among the south and middle Germanic tribes. But obviously they were not forgotten and survived as established rites among the peoples. This can be derived from many observations. One is that the founder of the law school that in 1119 became the University of Bologna, the Langobard Irnerus, during the last part of the eleventh century, taught Roman as well as Langobardic law.
The development in England differed somewhat from that in continental Europe. The Germanic tribes of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, which settled in England during the fifth and sixth centuries, had laws similar to those of the continental Saxons, Frisians and Thuringians. However, in contrast to the leges Barbarorum they were written in the native language. After the separation from the continent, a clear development towards feudal principles occurred. The former popular assemblies were replaced by a Council of the Great (witenagemot) and subordinate county courts (scirgerefa, origin of sheriff). There was an antithesis of common laws to privileges.
Whereas in continental Europe physicians or surgeons were responsible for the medicolegal examination of wounds and corpses, in England it was the coroner, a layman whose duty it was to hold inquests over dead bodies. The first indication of the existence of a coroner system in England can be found in the Charts of Privileges (925), which make reference to a grant of the coroner’s office by King Athelstane to an English noble. Athelstane of Wessex was the king who united the Anglo-Saxons during his reign (924939).
Medieval Town Charters and Related Laws
In the year 1100 the so-called Assizes of Jerusalem were promulgated, a code of laws framed for the kingdom of Jerusalem at the instance of Godfrey de Bouillon, the crusader. The code determined, inter alia, that if, because of alleged illness, a vassal could not appear before the lord’s court to plead his case, ‘the Lord must send to this man’s house three of his men to decide the issue, a physician and an apothecary and a surgeon’. In cases of murder, these three experts were also sent, ‘and they must say what is the matter with him, and where he has been injured, and with what instrument it seems to them that the injuries have been inflicted’. As the laws and customs of the kingdom of Jerusalem were derived from those already existing in Europe, it is more than probable that such medicolegal examinations were of common occurrence in Europe itself at this period. Similar regulations existed at the same time in Antioch: knights could only excuse their nonattendance before the court when medical experts confirmed the alleged illness.
The basic legal ideas of the Germanic laws were also reflected by the edict (1154) of the Norman king, Roger II of Sicily, and another edict (1221) of his grandson, the Hohenstaufen emperor, Frederick II (who was also the grandson of Frederick Barbarossa), which both provided for the appointment of physicians to help the courts. These edicts had a strong influence on the Italian town charters between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, which contributed much to the development of a systematically consolidated medicolegal discipline.
The Italian town charters without doubt were codified with the help of the faculties of law of the newly established universities (Parma 1066, Bologna 1119, Modena 1175, Perugia 1200, Padua 1222, Naples 1224, Siena 1240). In 1249 the physician Hugo de
Lucca was appointed sworn expert of the magistrate of Bologna. One of his reports of the same year (on a case of abortion) still exists. It is likely that he was the first to perform legal autopsies, between 1266 and 1275. However, the first documented legal autopsy report of Bologna, in a case of suspected poisoning, was signed by Bartolomeo da Virignana in 1302. The Faculty of Medicine of the University of Bologna was founded in 1156, but only in 1306 did it become independent of the Faculty of Law. This means that these first significant developments must have taken place under the supervision of the Faculty of Law.
Most of the Italian town charters determined that two experts, generally a physician and a surgeon, were responsible for postmortem examinations (e.g. Padua 1315, Mirandola 1386). The town charter of Bologna (1288) stipulated that a medical expert must be at least 40 years of age and a citizen of Bologna for at least 10 years. The town charter of Pavia (1394) even regulated the performance of legal autopsies. Several reports on postmortem examinations, not always autopsies, still exist (e.g. Bologna 1289, Verona 1450, Brescia 1470, Milan 1502).
Similar regulations can be found in the canon laws. The decrees of Pope Innocent III (1209) provided for the consultation of medical experts in cases of injury and intoxication, among others. External examinations of all corpses were ordered. The Nova compilatio decretarium of Pope Gregory IX (1234) dealt, inter alia, with matters in which, to bring evidence against the accused, a physician had to be called upon.
In France, the Bishops of Maine and of Anjou had medical experts in their service from the eleventh century, and there were surgeon-experts in Paris from the twelfth century. Philip the Bold, in 1278, provided for sworn surgeons in legal matters. Examples of medical reports exist from 1330 onwards. As in Italy, in France the first universities were founded around the same time (Paris 1211, Montpellier 1289). In 1374 the right of autopsy was given to the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Montpellier by the Pope.
A similar development occurred in Spain, where the first university in Salamanca was founded in 1218. Juan de Castillo (1406-1454) wrote a Cedula Real (Royal Decree), which organized the Proto-medicato (Court of Justice for Medical Persons). The Protomedicato, with the help of court physicians, was responsible for the sentencing of physicians and surgeons in cases of medical malpractice. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the principle of the Protomedicato was exported to Latin America.
In Germany, from the eleventh century the towns achieved independent jurisdictions. Written laws became necessary and were modeled on the Germanic common laws. The similarities in the judgment of injuries between the Germanic laws of the fifth to eighth centuries and these town charters are surprising. The laws included the same catalogs of wounds, arranged by severity and location, and compensation to be paid; even similar wordings can be found.
One of the older laws which has come down to us is the Sachsisches Weichbildrecht (Saxonian settlement law, 1237-1250), which was derived from the older Sachsenspiegel (Saxonian mirror, 1225). This written law provided for medical experts who had sworn an oath to assist the courts. Similar regulations can be found in the town charters of Lubeck (1224) and Hamburg (1270). These charters were adopted by several other north German and northeastern European towns, reaching as far as Reval (1282). Similarities can also be found in the town charters of Nuremberg (1350) and Constance (1387). The town charters of Goslar (early fourteenth century) and of Magdeburg (late fourteenth century) provided for sworn medical experts in all cases of injury and of murder. The experts were regarded as helpers of the courts, not as witnesses. Written expert reports of the fourteenth century still exist in Magdeburg, Stendal and Goslar.
As in Italy, this development coincided with the establishment of universities (Prague 1348, Vienna 1365, Heidelberg 1386, Cologne 1388, Leipzig 1409). Their medical faculties discussed and criticized court decisions, especially in capital offenses. As far as is known, the first opinion was given by the medical faculty of the University of Cologne in 1478. It included the following advice: ‘It is useful and necessary that those who die unexpectedly – God forbid this, but unfortunately it happens so often – are opened and dissected immediately in order to examine the organs and find the cause of death or the lethal disease.’ A similar opinion was given by the Leipzig faculty in 1517. These opinions doubtlessly instilled a proper caution in the medical experts, who knew that their conclusions would be the subject of scrutiny. From this time on, forensic medicine shifted more and more from a merely practical to a scientific discipline.
If one compares the medicolegal aspects of the Italian and German town charters, it is remarkable that the same or very similar laws were in existence at about the same time. To give an example: both the Italian and the German town charters set great store by the exact diagnosis of the number of lethal wounds. This number limited the number of possible perpetrators and, accordingly, the number of those who could be charged with the crime, a concept that was later abolished.
Developments in England differed completely from those in continental Europe. When the Normans conquered England in 1066, they imposed the Car-olingian judicial system on the Anglo-Saxons. A long struggle between King and landed nobility was won by the Crown and from the thirteenth century English courts became organized on a centralized basis. During the reign of King Henry II (1154-1189), the highest court, filled with professional judges, developed the principle of common law. Common law in a sense is unwritten law. It was defined as the customary law of England, declared and expounded by the judges as cases of dispute arose. The principles of such court decisions (precedents) were binding on later decisions. Common law thus contrasted with the statute law of the continent.
The office of the coroner was formally described in 1194, when the justices were required to provide that three knights and one clerk were elected in every county as ‘keepers of the pleas of the crown’. The term ‘coroner’ is obviously a corruption of crowner. The coroner had the duty to hold inquests over dead bodies. He also had to inspect wounds of living individuals, to record the accusation against another individual and, if the wounds appeared likely to be fatal, to arrest the accused individual. The coroner was neither physician nor surgeon, and there are no indications that he was assisted by medical experts.
The Caroline Code and Developments in Continental Europe
There is no doubt that the German town charters had a strong influence on the codification of the Bamberg code (1507) and the Caroline code (1532). Although the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina followed the Bamberg code and was clearly based on it, it was the Carolina that became famous and is today accepted as a landmark in the history of forensic medicine. The main reason is that the Emperor Charles V of Germany, who promulgated his criminal code in 1532, insured that it was to govern his empire, which extended over much of Europe. Thus it provided a uniform system of German penal jurisprudence for a great part of Europe. The Caroline code took into account the fact that many questions could not be answered purely by legal methods; it obliged judges to take formal evidence from physicians, sworn in advance, in cases of doubt or difficulty where death had resulted from violence, whether criminal or accidental.
Importantly, this code introduced the practice of conducting medicolegal autopsies. Although more than a century passed before they became generally obligatory, instead of just being permitted and used only occasionally, as was previously the practice, the Caroline code thus opened the way for forensic medicine to develop as a separate discipline, as indeed it did during the succeeding hundred years.
The first step in this direction was the publication of monographs and systematic treatises. The earliest and most significant authors were Ambroise Pare (France 1575; Pare was trained in Bologna and Montpellier), Juan Fragoso (Spain 1581), Fortunatus Fidelis (Palermo 1597), Giovanni Battista Codronchi (Italy 1597), Felix Platter (Switzerland 1614), Paolo Zacchia (Italy 1621), Bernardus Suevus (Germany 1629), Melchior Sebitz (Germany 1638), Gottfried Welsch (Germany 1660) and Johannes Bohn (Germany 1689).
The next logical step in evolution was that forensic medicine became the subject of special instruction, which occurred in the seventeenth century. The first lecture was held in 1650 by Michaelis in Leipzig. Other universities followed at the beginning of the eighteenth century (in Germany these were Giessen 1700, Halle 1703, Erfurt 1718, Jena 1719, Berlin in 1724). The first medicolegal journal appeared already in 1782 in Berlin, published by Uden and Pyl. From the end of the eighteenth century, chairs of forensic medicine were created in the medical faculties of many German universities (Heidelberg 1762, Vienna 1805, Prague 1807, Berlin 1820). Eventually institutes of forensic medicine were founded (the first were Vienna 1818 and Prague 1820). In 1905 the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur gerichtliche Medizin (German Society of Forensic Medicine) was established.
Although the traditional unity of the discipline remained unchanged, some remarkable new developments occurred. Criminal investigation institutes were founded by the police, which little by little took over parts of the work previously carried out by the university institutes, such as ballistics, fingerprints, traces. These institutes are well respected today and are also well staffed and well equipped. A second change emerged from rapid developments in the natural sciences. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries forensic toxicology was mostly in the hands of physicians. It became necessary to attract chemists to the discipline, and, with the emergence of forensic serology, biologists as well. They are now integrated in institutes of forensic medicine, which makes good sense.
However, the typical peculiarities derived from the historic development in Germany, as in other continental states, remained unchanged. Legal medicine is based at the university and is thus independent of judical, investigative and political authorities. It encompasses most subdisciplines of the forensic sciences: forensic pathology and clinical forensic medicine; clinical and forensic toxicology; forensic serology (including biological traces and paternity testing); insurance medicine; traffic medicine (including forensic alcohology); and medical law and ethics. In some institutes the following subdisciplines can also be found: forensic psychiatry; forensic odontology; forensic anthropology; and forensic criminalis-tics (hairs and fibers, toolmarks and impressions, shot-distance determination).
Developments in the English-speaking World
England did not join the rapid progress of the continent. There was little development in the coroner system until the middle of the nineteenth century. In 1860 the fee system was abolished and salaries were established for the county coroners. In 1888 the election of the coroners by freeholders was abolished and an appointee system was developed, under which the head of the local govermental unit appointed the coroner. There remained, however, no minimum qualifications for office. These were established in 1926, when a law was enacted requiring 5 years experience as a medical practitioner, barrister or solicitor if the individual was to qualify as a coroner.
The impact of the development of institutes of forensic medicine in continental Europe was felt in England. In 1788 the first systematic topic on medical jurisprudence in English was edited in London by Samuel Farr. However, the development of legal medicine was more satisfactory in Scotland than in England. In 1789, Andrew Duncan, Professor of Physiology at the University of Edinburgh, began giving lectures in legal medicine. He published a text topic in 1792. In 1807 the first chair of legal medicine in the English-speaking world was established at the University of Edinburgh and occupied by Andrew Duncan Jr. One of his successors, Robert Christison, published the first monograph on forensic toxicology in the English language in 1829. In Glasgow the first lectures on the topic were given in 1826 by James Arbour. A chair of medical jurisprudence was established in 1839. In Aberdeen, lectures on the subject were given by Francis Ogston from 1839. The university chair was established in 1857.
The most famous name in English legal medicine was that of Alfred Swaine Taylor. He became Professor of Medical Jurisprudence at Guy’s Hospital Medical School in 1834. In 1836 he edited a famous text topic. At King’s College a chair of medical jurisprudence was established in 1844. The first professor was WA Guy.
At the beginning of the twentieth century forensic medicine developed more or less independently of medical school teaching of the subject. This was related to the foundation of Scotland Yard, which became an important police investigative agency. Coroners experienced the advantages of calling upon Scotland Yard to assist in their investigations. In investigations into deaths, Scotland Yard detectives soon found themselves in need of assistance from pathologists and toxicologists; such experts were appointed and given the title of Home Office Pathologist or Home Office Analyst.
The development of the adversarial system of jurisprudence in England, however, also created problems for medicolegal experts. Francis Camps expressed these thus:
History has revealed that the physician in the courtroom is the traditional contribution of legal medicine to justice. With the development of the common-law adversary system of jurisprudence in Britain, the medical expert became a partisan, or at least felt he became such. In the older continental jurisprudence the inquisitorial system utilized all witnesses, including the physician, as court (not party) witnesses. Perhaps this legal history alone explains why legal medicine has been more successfully used for justice in Europe than in the common-law countries, such as the United States, which have accepted Britain’s legal system.
The early American colonists, originating in England, brought the coroner system with them in essentially the state of development it had reached by the early 1600s. There still exist documents of coroner’s inquests in New Plymouth (1635) and in Maryland (1637). Early autopsies are recorded in Massachusetts (1647) and in Maryland (1665).
James SStringham of New York was the first to lecture on legal medicine in the US(1804) and was the first professor of the subject (1813). He came from Edinburgh and was influenced by the teaching of the Duncans there. His first text topic was published in 1814. Even earlier (1811), Benjamin Rush edited a text topic in Philadelphia. He was also a medical graduate of Edinburgh. In 1812-1813, Charles Cald-well gave a course of lectures on legal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. TR Beck, pupil of String-ham, became Lecturer in Medical Jurisprudence at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in the Western District of the State of New York in 1815. Together with his brother, JB Beck, he published a famous text topic in 1823. Later on, in 1826, TR Beck was appointed professor of the subject at Fairfield College.
The Code of Public General Laws of Maryland (1860) authorized the coroner to require the attendance of a physician in cases of violent death. The 1868 legislature even authorized the governor to appoint a physician as sole coroner of the city of Baltimore. In Boston, in 1877, the coroner system was replaced by the medical examiner system. However, the medical examiners did not have the right to order autopsies. This was not corrected until the 1940s. No central laboratory for toxicological analyses was available. It was only in the 1980s that a true state medical examiner system was established in Massachusetts.
In New York, the medical examiner system was introduced in 1915. It was the famous Milton Help-ern who brought together this office with an Institute of Forensic Medicine as a teaching arm of New York University. In 1937, the first intramural department of legal medicine in an American medical school was established at Harvard University.
It is remarkable that the Medico-Legal Society of the City and State of New York, founded in 1867, is the oldest scientific society on the subject in the world.
Forensic Sciences
Introduction
Forensic science is the application of science pertaining to the law and requires the complementary interaction of a wide range of scientific specialties and disciplines. The first aspect of applied forensic science begins with the identification, individualization or classification of physical evidence. For some types of evidence, identification or individualization may only be possible after conducting chemical or scientific tests. Types of evidence that require testing to insure accurate identification include blood stains, body fluids, drugs, arson accelerants and other chemicals. The identification of unknown substances or objects may be achieved by comparing their characteristics with those of known standards, previously established criteria or database information. In the forensic examination of fibers and hairs, determination of fiber type, form, dye composition, elucidation of color, species or anatomical origins utilize class characteristics for such identification. The ultimate goal of the identification process in forensic science is individualization: to say that a particular piece of evidence originates from a specific locus, scene or person. In reality, few types of evidence can be unequivocally individualized like fingerprint and DNA evidence. All other types of evidence, if appropriately identified, can be said to be consistent with originating from a particular source, site or individual. Many of the classical databases, techniques and tests now routinely used in forensic identification have been constructed, developed and refined in a process which, for some disciplines, has taken centuries, and for more recent technologies, decades. To depict the historical development and growth of forensic sciences, this narrative will broadly address documented instances of the organizational and developmental aspects of several disciplines and specialties within the profession, outlining the progression from basic conception to the application of some methodologies and techniques used today. The evolution of the field originates with the worldwide development of a number of different specialty or subspecialty scientific disciplines, with the rate of advance or development of each discipline being extremely variable, due to complexity, geographical location or availability of financial resources and technology.
Forensic Medicine and Toxicology
The earliest documented forensic specialty could probably be considered to be forensic medicine, also known as legal medicine or medical jurisprudence, and is the application of medicine and medical science to answer legal problems. Records indicate that the first documented dissertation on forensic medicine was written in China in the sixth century by an individual named Hsu Chich’Ts’ si. Although this work was apparently lost, a second Chinese manuscript still exists. Completed in 1247, the Hsi Duan Yu (The Washing Away of Wrongs) provides what is thought to be the first alliance of medicine and law and supplies specifications on distinguishing death by drowning or strangulation from death by natural causes. Further records suggest that legal medicine really began to prosper sometime in the sixth century, heralding the development of modern day science and medicine. It was not until around the end of the eighteenth century that the first appearance of legal medicine experts in the courtroom was documented.
The development of modern-day chemistry is considered to have begun at the end of the eighteenth century, paving the way for the development of modern toxicology. Closely related to forensic medicine, forensic toxicology centers on the determination of toxic substances in human tissues and organs and the subsequent determination of the role any toxic agents may have in contributing to or causing death. In general, forensic toxicology cases entail some form of drug or alcohol abuse. One of the most influential people in the development of toxicology was Mathieu Orfila. Orfila moved to France in 1807 and eventually became dean of the medical school in Paris. He is considered to be one of the first experts to provide reliable scientific evidence in a criminal trial, while his academic studies provided toxicology a firm niche within the developing sciences. Orfila and associates are also credited with developing the first chemical test to detect arsenic, the poison of choice at that time. However, it was James Marsh, a Scottish chemist, who was considered to be the first to provide toxicological evidence supporting arsenic detection for a legal trial, around 1836. The Lafarge case, also conducted by Orfila, is documented as the first case in which the defense called an opposing expert, Francois Vincent Raspail, in an attempt to refute the scientific evidence of the prosecution’s expert witness.
Personal Identification
Personal identification plays a mammoth role in forensic and criminal investigations, and many sub-specialties in personal identification are still being developed and more frequently utilized. Forensic odontology uses dental records to facilitate human identification. This type of identification process is often called for in the identification of unrecognizable bodies, after mass disasters, and in the identification and comparison of bite marks. Also facilitating personal identification is the use of forensic anthropology. This discipline, mainly concerned with bodily or skeletal remains, has, over recent years, constructed a number of databases cataloguing differences in physical structure of the body as a function of sex and race. It was Alphonse Bertillon who first developed the most significant and earliest personal identification system, at the end of the nineteenth century. Bertil-lon’s system of anthropometry, which involved a series of body and facial measurements, was developed to establish a process for use in the identification of habitual criminals. The system, also known as bertil-lonage, was devised in Paris and applied worldwide. Nowadays, it is considered that this system of identification cannot be utilized to uniquely identify one person as being distinct from all others. Although the concept of anthropometry was considered theoretically possible, in practice, inconsistency in measurement techniques decreased the discriminating ability of the system. Despite this, Bertillon’s system is still considered to have made a significant contribution to the development of forensic science, representing one of the first examples of the use of individualization for criminal investigation. Anthropometric systems were replaced as the science of fingerprinting was developed and the value of fingerprinting in personal identification and individualization was acknowledged.
Fingerprints
Fingerprint examination is probably the most used of personal identification techniques. Much of the work involves the study and classification of fingerprints, the development of latent prints and the comparison of known and unknown fingerprints. Despite the fact that Bertillon opposed the introduction of fingerprinting, he was the first person in Europe to use latent prints to solve a criminal case, as well as being among the first to use systematic crime scene photography. The development of fingerprinting for personal identification was originally the initiative of William Herschel, a British civil servant residing in India in 1877, who first publicly proposed that fingerprints might be useful in the identification of criminals. However, it was Henry Faulds, a Scottish physician working in Japan around the same time, who recognized the value of latent prints from a crime scene. The use of fingerprints in identifying a criminal was subsequently published in the journal Nature, and Faulds continued on to use fingerprints to identify a Tokyo burglar in 1880. As a result of his own studies and fingerprint pattern types described by Francis Galton, Juan Vucetich, an Argentinean police official, set up his own fingerprint classification system in 1891. In 1892, Galton published Fingerprints, the first text on the use of fingerprints in personal identification and crime investigation, and devised the first scientific methods for the classification of fingerprint patterns. Several years later, Sir Edward Richard Henry, another British civil servant in India, continued to devise a fingerprint classification scheme, cataloguing sets of fingerprints that could be retrieved for identification purposes; he subsequently developed the fingerprint classification system that would replace anthropometry in Europe and North America. This system was implemented in Europe when Henry was appointed head of Scotland Yard in the early 1900s. At the same time, in the United States, DeForrest initiated the first systematic use of fingerprints in personal identification. More recently, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI’s) Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) was initiated as a means of providing identification services to US law enforcement communities.
Criminalistics
The discipline of criminalistics encompasses all areas of trace evidence, such as soil, glass, hairs, fibers, blood and other body fluids, including, saliva, sweat, semen and vitreous humor. Criminalistics also includes arson, explosives, drug identification and investigation, interpretation of pattern and imprint evidence, and is by far the broadest of the disciplines of forensic science.
As well as conducting toxicology studies, Orfila was also responsible for the inception of early studies on blood and semen identification. Some of Orfila’s earlier work laid the foundation for the development of some of today’s routine tests. As early as 1827, Orfila discovered that extracting intact spermatozoa from seminal stains was extremely difficult and developed a series of chemical tests for semen identification. Following subsequent studies, other scientists established that microscopical examination of semen stains provided the most useful forensic information. In 1891, Hans Gross of Austria first promoted the concept of criminalistics by applying scientific knowledge and methods to facilitate the interpretation and analysis of physical evidence for cime investigation. Gross, also a legal expert, saw the function of crim-inalistics as the complementary collaboration of various forensic specialists with appropriate scientific backgrounds for the examination and interpretation of physical evidence. Gross was also responsible for the emancipation of a journal dedicated to forensic sciences. In France, Victor Balthazard and Edmond Locard conducted similar work. Balthazard, medical examiner for the city of Paris, also performed studies on probability models for fingerprints, bullet comparison, animal hairs and blood spatter patterns. In 1910, Locard set up the first police crime laboratory in Europe, in Lyon, the location of today’s Interpol, and is recognized for the inception of the Locard exchange principle: ‘Every contact leaves a trace’, the basic tenet of forensic science. Also during the 1920s, Luke May was the first to develop and apply striation analysis for toolmark comparison, incorporating statistical analysis into his methodology. In the latter part of the 1920s, Los Angeles Chief of Police August Vollmer, of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department, developed the first United States police crime laboratory. The FBI crime laboratory was subsequently established in 1932, and 5 years later Paul Kirk set up the first academic criminalistics program in the United States at the University of California. In 1950, the American Academy of Forensic Science was formed, with the subsequent institution of the Journal of Forensic Science.
Ballistics and firearm identification
The specialization of ballistics and firearm examination relates to firearm identification, comparison of bullet markings and rifling, the identification of projectiles, cartridge and shell cases, and determination of bullet trajectories and damage. The historical development of these specialties begins around 1835 when Henry Goddard, working for Scotland Yard, first used bullet comparisons to provide evidence leading to the arrest of a murderer. The comparison revealed a flaw in the bullet that could be traced back to a flaw in the original bullet mold. Nearly 55 years later, Dr Alexandre Lacassagne, professor of forensic medicine at the University of Lyon, was the first to associate bullets with a specific gun, by comparing striations etched on the bullet from a murder victim and striations from the gun barrel from which the bullet was fired. Lacassagne was also one of the first to study the nature of blood spatter patterns. The discipline further developed around 1900, when Paul Jesrich took photomicrographs of bullets for comparison, and illustrated the use of this technique for the possible individualization of minutiae. It was not until 1913 that Victor Balthazard published the first scientific article on the significance of bullet markings and their relation to bullet individualization. Further developments occurred during the 1920s, as Charles Waite first cataloged information regarding weapon manufacture, and, together with Goddard, Gravelle and Fisher, further developed the technique of comparison microscopy for bullet comparison.
Questioned documents
Another division of criminalistics is questioned document examination, which entails the comparison and interpretation of handwriting; materials generated from typing, printing, facsimiles and photocopying; and the analysis and aging of paper, inks and materials used to produce documents. Such techniques were used recently to assist in the invalidation of the Hitler Diaries. Francois Demelle in France reportedly published the first study on questioned document examination in 1609, but it was not until the 1800s that document examination truly began in Europe. Photographers at that time attempted to broaden their professional expertise by providing services that incorporated document comparison, but highly publicized mistakes delayed the acceptance of the profession. One such mistake involved Alphonse Bertillon,previously acclaimed for his invention and application of anthropometry to personal identification. In the Dreyfus case, Bertillon testified that the accused had written a document that was the basis for the charge of treason. The accused’s innocence was later proven. Old English laws that stated that writings were inadmissible as standards for comparison unless the writings were in evidence in a prior case, also allegedly hindered the lack of initial acceptance of the questioned document profession in the United States. The acceptance of questioned document testimony in courts eventually became a reality in 1913 via the enactment of Section 1731, Title 28 US Code. The code states that: ‘the admitted or proved handwriting of any person shall be admissible for purposes of comparison to determine genuineness of other handwriting attributed to such person.’
Nowadays, the Questioned Documents Unit of the FBI crime laboratory examines all aspects of documentary evidence, including hand printing, typewriter ribbons, printers, watermarks, erasures, alterations, obliterations, safety paper, charred paper, graphic arts, plastic bags and product tampering. The unit maintains the database files, such as the Anonymous Letter File, Bank Robbery Note File, National Fraudulent Check File, Office Equipment File and Watermark File.
Soil examination
The main contributor to the development of forensic soil and particulate examination was, again, Edmond Locard. In 1929 he made the observation that it was almost impossible for anyone to participate in any activity without removing soil or dust particles from the site, as a result of contamination of the person’s body, clothes, tools or vehicle. However, Locard credited Sherlock Holmes with the idea that botanical or earth materials could have important evidential value. Arthur Conan Doyle topics, published between 1893 and 1897, suggest that soil collected on a person at a crime scene could be used as evidence to place that person at that location. The first recorded use of this type of evidence was in Germany in 1904, by Dr George Popp who developed and presented what is thought to be the first example of evidence in a criminal case using botanical materials. Throughout the 1920s Popp continued to pioneer the use of botanical identification in forensic work.
Identification and association of human hair
Rudolph Virchow, a professor and prosecutor in Berlin, Germany, who established that a questioned hair from a particular crime suspect was indistinguishable from that of the victim, reported the first forensic investigation of human hair in 1861. By the early 1900s the significance of hair evidence in criminal investigations was routinely criticized and scrutinized by a number of medicolegal experts. In 1906, Hugo Marx, an official in the State Medical and Prison Medical Examiner’s office in Berlin, wrote a dissertation on the value of forensic hair examination and its role in personal identification. A text topic published at the turn of the century, from the founder of the Vienna school of forensic medicine, also contained a chapter on the investigation of hair. In 1910 Victor Balthazard and his associate, Marcelle Lambert, produced he poil de I’homme et des animaux (The Hair of Man and Animals). In this work they describe techniques closely resembling those still used in hair comparison today – mainly microscopical analysis to compare and observe morphological features. In 1931, John Glaister published a study of mammalian hairs and wool and their relevance to criminal investigation. The work contains approximately 1700 photomicrographs that show the structure of hair of humans and other mammals. Paul Kirk, criminalistics professor at the University of California at Berkeley, further developed hair analyses by improving the techniques of hair comparison, utilizing various physical and chemical properties in an attempt to facilitate the systematic individualization of human hair. Despite, cutting-edge advances in various other specialties of forensic science, the methods, philosophy and significance of forensic hair examination have not changed greatly since the early twentieth century. The Trace Evidence Unit of the FBI today holds extensive reference collections of human and animal hairs, natural and manmade fibers, feathers, ropes, cordage, woods and seeds.
DNA profiling
Evolving from classical serology, DNA profiling could be considered the modern-day technique revolutionizing personal identification in forensic science. In the mid-1980s Sir Alex Jeffreys developed the techniques allowing the profile analysis of DNA. After publishing his achievements in Nature in 1985, Jeffreys was subsequently called upon to apply his techniques to solve the first crime in 1986. In combination with the British Home Office Forensic Science Service, his DNA profiling techniques were used to identify Colin Pitchfork as the murderer of Dawn Ashworth and Lynda Mann in Leicestershire, England. Cetus Corporation furthered the developments of DNA profiling and molecular biology techniques in personal identification during the rest of the 1980s with the development of the poly-merase chain reaction. In 1987, not only was DNA profiling introduced for the first time to US criminal courts, but the admissibility of DNA evidence was also challenged, resulting in the development and implementation of appropriate accreditation, standardization and quality controls for DNA and forensic laboratories. During 1996, the FBI DNA Analysis Unit began using mitochondrial DNA analysis. This type of analysis can be applied to small or degraded quantities of DNA from hair, bones, teeth and body fluids, allowing the examination of evidence that may not have been suitable for comparison prior to the development of this technique.
Accreditation
Finally, over the last 30 years or so, several organizations have emerged that have developed guidelines and regulations assuring forensic laboratory standardization, accreditation and certification as a guide to legal and forensic communities. Of the numerous organizations that exist, three have made significant impacts on the professional appearance of the field of forensic science. The American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) committee E-30 on Forensic Sciences was created in 1970, with the purpose of standardizing methods and terminology unique to the field. To keep pace with the rapid technological advances within the field, standards are continuously updated. Established in the mid 1970s, the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors (ASCLD) is an international organization composed of crime laboratory directors whose mission is to promote ‘excellence through leadership in forensic science management’. The ASCLD laboratory accreditation board (ASCLD/LAB) is a related organization that has published minimum standards for laboratories and their personnel to achieve, allowing formal accreditation by the organization. Around the same time the American Board of Criminalistics developed a series of examinations allowing the certification of individual forensic scientists in their particular area of expertise. Although individual certification processes are currently voluntary, it is probable that courts will come to expect such quality assurances as the number of certified laboratories and individuals using standard techniques continues to grow.
