Forensic Science
The study of the dead to understand the living.
Broadest definition:
• Application of science to law
• As our society becomes more complex, science merges more closely with civil and criminal law.
Consider: FDA
10 divisions of the American Academy of Forensic Science
• Criminalistics• Engineering Science• General• Jurisprudence• Odontology• Pathology• Physical Anthropology• Psychiatry• Questioned documents• Toxicology
Forensics: Chemistry & Anatomy• 1775 - Swedish chemist Carl Scheele:
Arsenic in corpses
• 1814 – Spaniard chemist Mathieu Orfila: “father of forensic toxicology” (poisons)
• 1839 – French scientist Henri-Louis Bayard: microscopic detection of sperm
• 1892: Englishman Francis Galton: fingerprints
• 1901: German Karl Landsteiner: blood types
• 1984: Englishman Alec Jeffreys: DNA typing