Introduction To Forensic Science

Question 0

Julius Caesar was assassinated by a group of senators. A physician determined that among the twenty-three wounds suffered, only one was fatal. What year?

Answer 0

44 BC

Question 1

Who is called the father of forensic science?

Answer 1

Archimedes (287-212BC)

Question 2

Which century was medical men being employed in Germanic and Slavic communities?

Answer 2

The 5th century saw the introduction of medical men being employed in Germanic and Slavic communities in Europe to discover and determine death.

Question 3

What did we se being used for the first time in the 6th century?

Answer 3

Fingerprints.

Question 4

What is “Collected Cases of Injustice Rectified” by Song Ci?

Answer 4

Written in 1247. It is the first written records of forensics being used to solve crimes.

Question 5

Bartolomeo da Varignana performed an autopsy on the body of an Italian nobleman who was believed to have been murdered. What year?

Answer 5

14th century, 1302

Question 6

1348-1350 Holiness pope Clement VI gave the order for autopsies, in the hope of finding a possible cure, to be carried out on some of the victims from what decease?

Answer 6

The Black Plague.

Question 7

In what year, and what items were used to identify the French Duke of Burgundy’s remains?

Answer 7

1447 - Missing teeth were used to identify him.

Question 8

What century saw a rise in the interest in the causes of death, when a French army surgeon would dissect and examine organs of men killed in battle?

Answer 8

The 16th Century. Ambroise Pare was the surgeon and he wanted to determine cause of death and how the organs reacted to such a demise.

Question 9

Fortunato Fidelis and Paolo Zacchia, two Italian surgeons, provided the basis for what?

Answer 9

Modern pathology. They conducted autopsies to study the changes that occur after deaths caused by diseases.

Question 10

The Dutch optician Zacharias Jansen developed the optical microscope (which was a single lens) in 1590. What else did he invent?

Answer 10

The compound microscope, which was capable of 9x magnification.

Question 11

What is the stereoscopic microscope?

Answer 11

A microscope which has dual eye pieces plus double lenses with prisms, and enables the user to see a three-dimensional image.

Question 12

What is the comparison microscope?

Answer 12

It is similar to the stereoscopic, as it has two lenses with individual prisms that enables the user to examine two images next to each other.

Question 13

Several books and papers were published in the 17th century, including the book “A Treatise on Forensic Medicine and Public Health” written by which French doctor?

Answer 13

Doctor Fodér.

Question 14

Which German doctor published “The Complete System of Police Medicine?

Answer 14

Doctor Johann Peter.

Question 15

François Demelle published a paper on what?

Answer 15

The first dissertation on systematic document examination to determine handwriting, inks and authenticity.

Question 16

What did Sir Thomas Browne describe, in 1658, as being a fatty, waxy, soap-like substance?

Answer 16

Adipocere. A substance formed on human corpses buried in moist, air-free spaces.

Question 17

Scientist Antony Van Leeuwenhoek used a microscope, in 1683, to study bacteria. What did he call the bacteria?

Answer 17

Animalcules.

Question 18

In 1686, a professor of anatomy at the University of Bologna, identified which method to be used, and what was his name?

Answer 18

The fingerprint method. His name was Marcello Malpighi.

Question 19

What did Giovanni Morgagni do in the latter part of the 1600s?

Answer 19

By conducting autopsies he collected data and correlated autopsy findings to match various diseases.

Question 20

What year and which Swedish chemist discovered how to detect arsenic, large quantities, in bodies even if the body had been buried for a short time?

Answer 20

1776

Carl Wilhelm Scheele.

Question 21

What year did France instigate the first collection of criminal statistics?

Answer 21

1803

Question 22

In 1805 England initiated a bureau of.. What?

Answer 22

Bureau of criminal statistics.

Question 23

The first detective force in France, The Sûreté of Paris, was established what year? And which former criminal became the director?

Answer 23

1810

Eugène François Vidocq

Question 24

What is known as the Konigin Hanschritt and was used with success in Germany for the first time in 1810?

Answer 24

It’s the chemical test for ink dye on documents to prove authenticity.

Question 25

What year was the first time that bullet comparison was used to catch a murderer? And who was the victim?

Answer 25

1835

Henry Goddard, one of London’s original Bow Street Runners.

Question 26

What did H. Bayard develop in 1839?

Answer 26

The first consistent method of using the microscope to detect sperm.

Question 27

Who is recognised as being the Founder of Toxicology and made a study of poisons and how to detect them in 1813?

Answer 27

Dr. Mathieu Bonaventure Orfila.

Question 28

What is the Marsh Test?

Answer 28

A method of being able to process arsenic from body tissues. This is one of the earliest methods of forensic science.

Question 29

On which French industrialist was the Marsh Test used, after it became known in 1840?

Answer 29

Charles Lafarge.
His much younger wife was lacing his food with small amounts of arsenic.
Dr. Orfila himself was invited to conduct the test, which he did with positive results.

Question 30

When was the first description of senile ecchymoses given?

Answer 30

1817 by T. Bateman.

It is the dark purple-coloured marks/blotches on elderly which can on occasion be mistaken for bruising.

Question 31

In 1831 Leuchs describe amylase activity in what?

Answer 31

Human saliva.

Question 32

In 1839 Dr. John Davy recounts one of the earliest attempts to determine time of death using what?

Answer 32

A mercury thermometer. These experiments were carried out on dead soldiers.

Question 33

What is The M’Naghten/McNaughton Rules?

Answer 33

They were devised, in 1843, to establish if insanity is the cause of the individual’s behaviour when a crime has been commited.

Question 34

When and who discovered the method of identification of vegetable poison in body tissue after death?

Answer 34

1851

Jean Servais Stas from Belgium.

Question 35

What did Ludwig Teichmann develop in 1853?

Answer 35

He developed the first microscopic crystal test for haemoglobin using Hemin Crystals.

Question 36

What year did the English doctor Maddox develop the dry plate photography?

Answer 36

1854

This method would replace M. Daguerre’s wet plate on tin method.

Question 37

Ambroise August Tardieu noted in 1855 that petechial haemorrhage takes place in death caused by what?

Answer 37

Asphyxiation.

Question 38

It was in San Fransisco that the first use of systematic photography for criminal identification was established. What year?

Answer 38

1854-59

Question 39

Which Italian was awarded the title of the Father of Criminology?

Answer 39

Cesare Lombroso (1836-1909)
His theories are now considered to be irrelevant, but he did bring the study of criminology to the public notice and helped introduce forensics.