Forensic science did not arrive all at once. It grew in fits and starts: a handbook for coroners, a chemist stung by a lost case, a clerk obsessed with filing, a scientist who noticed something odd in an X-ray film of DNA. Each step gave investigators a new way to make physical evidence speak, and each came with its own mistakes.
This is a guided tour of ten milestones, in order. It is a selection, not a complete history, and many of the "firsts" below are described that way by the sources we cite, though historians sometimes argue about them.
At a glance
| Year | Milestone | What changed |
|---|---|---|
| 1247 | The Washing Away of Wrongs | A written guide for investigating suspicious deaths |
| 1814 | Orfila's treatise on poisons | Toxicology becomes a science |
| 1836 | The Marsh test | Trace arsenic can be detected |
| 1883 | Bertillon's system | Police identify repeat offenders by measurement and photography |
| 1892 | Vucetich and the fingerprint | A fingerprint solves a murder |
| 1910 | Locard's laboratory | The first police crime lab |
| 1925 | The comparison microscope | Bullets can be compared side by side |
| 1984–87 | DNA profiling | DNA identifies a killer and clears an innocent suspect |
| 1998 | CODIS | A national DNA database |
| 2009 | The National Research Council report | Forensic science examines itself |
1. 1247: A handbook for coroners
Long before laboratories, there were coroners, and they needed instructions. In 1247, the Chinese official Song Ci published Xi Yuan Ji Lu, usually translated as The Washing Away of Wrongs. The Mütter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia describes it as the first known forensic handbook. It was aimed at local coroners and set out how to examine bodies in different conditions, how to tell murder from suicide and how to look for signs of poison, strangulation and other causes of death.
The same museum notes that the work served as a standard manual in China for centuries and was later translated into several languages. It also contained advice that no modern coroner would follow, including remedies for "reviving" the dead, which is a reminder that early forensic knowledge mixed careful observation with guesswork.
For context, England established the office of coroner in 1194, according to the same source.
2. 1814: Toxicology gets a textbook
Poison was a favorite murder weapon for centuries, partly because it was hard to prove. In 1814 the Spanish-born French physician Mathieu Orfila published Traité des poisons, which the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) calls the first book devoted entirely to toxicology. Orfila, often called the "Father of Toxicology," worked to make chemical analysis a routine part of forensic medicine.
He was also cautious. According to the NLM, Orfila argued that arsenic in the soil around graves could be drawn into a body and be mistaken for poisoning, and he insisted that soil testing be part of every exhumation case. It is an early example of a forensic scientist worrying about contamination and false positives.
3. 1836: The Marsh test
In 1832, police arrested John Bodle for lacing his grandfather's coffee with poison. The chemist James Marsh tested the drink and confirmed arsenic by producing a yellow precipitate, but the precipitate was unstable and had deteriorated by the time of trial. Without convincing proof, Bodle was acquitted.
Marsh, stung by the verdict, devised a better test. His 1836 "Marsh test" won worldwide acclaim and became a standard procedure, says the NLM. It also adds an honest footnote: in later decades, the test turned out to have problems of its own and was improved several times. That pattern, a breakthrough followed by refinement, repeats throughout this list.
4. 1883: Bertillon measures the criminal
In the 1880s, police had a problem: how do you recognize a repeat offender who gives a false name? Alphonse Bertillon, a records clerk in the Paris police, answered with a system of body measurements, descriptions of features such as ears and scars, and photographs. The Paris police adopted his method, called bertillonage, in 1883. In 1884 he used it to identify 241 repeat offenders, and it spread to police forces in Britain, Europe and the Americas.
The NLM notes that the system was hard to use: measuring tools needed constant recalibration, trained staff were needed, and different officers sometimes produced different numbers for the same person. It was eventually abandoned for fingerprints. But some of Bertillon's ideas survived: the standard "mug shot" and his systematic photography of crime scenes, including shots taken from a tripod before investigators disturbed the scene.
5. 1892: A fingerprint solves a murder
In 1892, two boys were killed in the village of Necochea, near Buenos Aires, Argentina. Suspicion first fell on a man who courted the children's mother, Francisca Rojas, but he did not confess even under torture. Investigators found a bloody fingerprint at the scene and contacted Juan Vucetich, who was developing a fingerprint identification system for police. Vucetich compared the print with those of Rojas and the man. Rojas had denied touching the bodies, but the print matched one of hers, and when confronted with it she confessed.
The NLM describes this as the first successful use of fingerprint identification in a murder investigation. Vucetich went on to refine his method, and it was adopted by the province of Buenos Aires in 1903. Fingerprinting, as we explain in how fingerprint evidence works, is trusted but has a real error rate, and that history is still being written.
6. 1910: The first police crime laboratory
By the early twentieth century, the pieces were there, but no one had put them together in a dedicated place. In 1910, the French criminologist Edmond Locard persuaded the Lyon police to give him space for a laboratory. Nature describes it as the world's first police crime laboratory.
Locard's lasting contribution was an idea: that people leave traces of themselves on what they touch, and take traces with them. Our article on Locard's exchange principle explains the idea, and why the famous short quote isn't quite his own words.
7. 1925: Two bullets, one view
Matching a bullet to a gun used to be slow. Before the 1920s, examiners looked at each bullet in turn under a single microscope, or compared photographs, which flatten three-dimensional marks into two dimensions. In early 1925 Calvin Goddard, described by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) as "generally acknowledged as the father of firearms identification in the United States," and his associate Phillip O. Gravelle adapted existing microscopes by joining two with an optical bridge. Examiners could now see two objects side by side in a single field of view.
The comparison microscope has evolved a great deal. The NIJ notes that modern versions have digital imaging and motorized controls, but the idea of looking at two objects at once remains.
8. 1984–1987: DNA enters the courtroom
In 1984, British geneticist Alec Jeffreys found that short sequences of DNA repeat a different number of times in different people. He published the method of "DNA fingerprinting" in 1985. It was first used for paternity and immigration disputes.
Its first use in a murder case came in Leicestershire, England. Two 15-year-old girls had been killed in the village of Narborough, one in 1983 and one in 1986. Police arrested a 17-year-old with an intellectual disability, who confessed to one of the killings and then retracted it. Jeffreys' test, run at the police's request, showed that the boy was innocent of both killings. According to the science museum The Tech, this was the first time DNA both identified a criminal and cleared an innocent person.
Police then took DNA samples from more than 5,000 local men, with no match. In August 1987, a man was overheard saying he had been pressured to take the DNA test in the name of Colin Pitchfork. Pitchfork was arrested, his own DNA matched, and he confessed. He was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years in prison.
The case shows both the power of DNA and the way it works best: as a check on suspicion, not just a way to confirm it. In 1991 Jeffreys also developed short tandem repeat (STR) typing, which, according to the NLM, the forensic community adopted as its standard.
9. 1998: A national database
A DNA profile is most useful when it can be compared against others. In the United States, the FBI launched the national DNA database known as CODIS in 1998. By 2021 it held more than 20 million profiles, and the FBI reported that it had aided over 545,000 investigations. (We discuss its role in reopened files in our article on what a cold case is.)
Databases changed how old cases are reopened. A sample from a decades-old scene can now be compared with millions of profiles that did not exist when the crime happened.
10. 2009: Forensic science examines itself
By the 2000s, DNA had set a high bar for scientific evidence, and critics asked whether other methods met it. At the request of Congress, the National Research Council produced Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward (2009). The National Academies describe it as an assessment of the state of forensic science with recommendations to ensure reliable work, establish enforceable standards and promote best practices.
The report remains a reference point in discussions about how to validate forensic methods. We touch on its findings, and those of the later PCAST report, in our article on fingerprint evidence.
What this timeline leaves out
Ten entries is a tiny slice. The list skips blood typing, handwriting analysis, forensic pathology, digital forensics, forensic anthropology and the many people whose work is rarely credited. Several of the "firsts" above also depend on how a milestone is defined, and different histories give different answers. We have credited each claim to the source that makes it.
Frequently asked questions
Who is the father of forensic science?
It depends on the field. The NLM calls Orfila the "Father of Toxicology," the NIJ describes Goddard as the father of firearms identification in the United States, and Locard is often called the father of modern forensic science. There is no single founder.
What is the oldest forensic text?
The Mütter Museum describes Song Ci's 1247 Washing Away of Wrongs as the first known forensic handbook. Other scholars may qualify that claim.
Has forensic science ever been wrong?
Yes. Bertillon's system was abandoned, the Marsh test needed improvement, and in 2004 FBI examiners wrongly identified Brandon Mayfield from a fingerprint, as described in our article on fingerprints. The field's strength is that its methods can be tested and corrected.
What came after DNA?
Researchers continue to develop new methods, and standards keep evolving. For the latest, consult current official sources, because this field changes quickly.
Where the app fits in
The Evidence & Clues collection in the True Crime Coloring Book app is full of the tools in this timeline: magnifying glasses, fingerprint cards, evidence tags and envelopes. You choose the colors, and the artwork stays illustrative rather than graphic.
Sources
- Mütter Museum, College of Physicians of Philadelphia, The Washing Away of Wrongs: Song Ci's handbook and the English coroner (1194).
- National Library of Medicine, Visible Proofs: Forensic Views of the Body: Mathieu Orfila, The Marsh test, Toxicology timeline, Alphonse Bertillon, Juan Vucetich and the origins of forensic fingerprinting, DNA timeline.
- Laura Spinney, Long-lost photos reveal details of world's first police crime lab, Nature, 2024.
- National Institute of Justice, Firearms Examiner Training: Comparison Microscopes (archived).
- The Tech Interactive, When was the first criminal caught using DNA evidence?, 2023.
- FBI, The FBI's Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) Hits Major Milestone, 2021.
- National Academies, Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward, 2009.
