History of Forensic Science (India and World)

Flashcards covering key historical milestones, organizations, and pioneers in forensic science in India and around the world.

Government Chemical Examiner Laboratory (Madras)

The first Chemical Examiner's Laboratory in India, established in 1849 under the Department of Health in the Madras Presidency to isolate, detect, and estimate poisons absorbed in human structure.

Anthropometry

A system of criminal identification introduced in 1879 by Alphonose Bertillon that relies on taking specific body measurements.

Bureau of Anthropometric Measurements

A bureau introduced at Calcutta in 1892 to maintain anthropometric records of criminals, which remained widespread in India until approximately 1900.

William Herschel

The Gatherer of the District of Hooghly (Bengal) who established that fingertip patterns never change over a lifetime and registered thumb impressions of native contractors and prisoners.

Khan Bahadur Azizul Huq

An Indian police officer who developed a mathematical formula to expand Sir Edward Henry's idea of arranging fingerprint slips into 1024 pigeon holes based on fingerprint patterns.

Hem Chandra Bose

An Indian police officer who contributed to fingerprint science by developing a system of sub-classification, a telegraphic code for finger impressions, and a single-digit classification system.

First Finger Print Bureau (Calcutta)

The world's first fingerprint bureau, established in Calcutta in 1897 by Sir Edward Henry, making India the first country to base personal identification solely on fingerprints.

Department of Explosives

A department established at Nagpur in 1898 to analyze clue materials related to explosives and investigate the causes of explosions.

Government Examiner of Questioned Documents (GEQD)

An office initially created in 1904 as the Government Handwriting Expert of Bengal (moved to Shimla in 1906) to identify handwritings on secret documents and questioned exhibits.

Mr. S, N, Sen

The first Indian officer to take over the post of Government Examiner of Questioned Documents (GEQD) in 1949.

Serology Department (Calcutta)

A department recognized in Calcutta in 1910 for examining human blood and semen stains in criminal investigations, headed by the Imperial Serologist to the Government of India.

Footprint Unit (Bengal CID)

A specialized unit established in 1915 under the CID, Government of Bengal, to identify criminals by analyzing footprints gathered from crime scenes.

Note Forgery Section (Bengal CID)

A section created under the CID, Government of Bengal in 1917 to inspect and detect forged currency notes.

State Forensic Science Laboratory, Calcutta

The first state forensic science research laboratory in India, established in 1952 by merging the Government Chemical Examiners Laboratory and becoming fully functional in 1953.

Central Finger Print Bureau (CFPB)

The central bureau first established at Shimla in 1905 on the recommendations of the Royal Police Commission (1902–03), later re-established in 1955 in Delhi under the Intelligence Bureau.

Antistius

A Roman physician who performed the first officially recorded autopsy in 44 BC on Julius Ceaser, discovering that only one of his 23 stab wounds was fatal.

Quintilian

A Roman orator and jurist from the 1st century AD who successfully used basic forensic principles to acquit an innocent person.

Xi Yuan Lu (The Washing Away of Wrongs)

A 13th-century Chinese book authored by Song Ci, recognized as the very first guide to pathology and the earliest written testimony using medicine and entomology to determine cause of death.

Ambroise Paré

A 16th-century French army surgeon who methodically studied the effects of violent death on internal human organs.

Fortunato Fidelis and Paolo Zacchia

Italian surgeons who laid the foundations of modern pathology by studying structural changes in the human body resulting from disease.

Henry Goddard

A Scotland Yard investigator who became the first person in 1835 to match a physical bullet to its murder weapon.

Calvin Goddard

An American physician who developed the comparison microscope in the 1920s to link fired bullets and shell casings to firearms.

Carl Wilhelm Scheele

A Swedish chemist who in 1773 created the first chemical test for detecting arsenic in dead bodies.

James Marsh

A Scottish chemist who in 1836 developed the first forensic toxicology test successfully applied in a murder trial.

Karl Landsteiner

A scientist who discovered and classified human blood groups, earning the Nobel Prize in 1930.

Edmond Locard

A professor at the University of Lyons who founded the first police crime laboratory in France in 1910 and was known as "The Sherlock Holmes of France".

Frits Zernike

A Dutch physicist who invented the first interference contrast microscope in 1935.