A Short History of Forensic Science Quiz

Answer: Blow flies were attracted to the sickle of the guilty man.

Song Ci's book was built upon knowledge already available in Chinese culture during the time of the Yuan Dynasty. His five-volume treatise deals with the legal precedent (and mandate) for inspecting bodies and injuries to determine causes and instructs coroners on what to look for and how to go about doing it. Forensic entomology uses knowledge of the behavior and life cycle of insects to illumine facts about a crime.

The magistrate in the case described had all the farmers who were suspected of the murder stand in the hot sun as the "shiny metallic colored flies" (in group behavior typical of their species) covered the sickle of the guilty man, attracted by the traces of blood and tissue that were not visible to the human observers.

Answer: Water

Water is a compound, with each of its molecules made up of one oxygen atom chemically bonded to two hydrogen atoms. But Archimedes's proof has more to do with physics than chemistry. The Roman writer Marcus Vitruvius Pollio relates the story of the King of Syracuse, Hiero II, who wanted to present a golden "corona" (Latin for "crown") to the gods to thank them for his victories. Hiero commissioned the work, weighing out a certain amount of gold to be crafted into a crown, much like the laurel wreaths worn by victors in wars and athletic events.

While the crown was beautiful, rumor had it that the goldsmith had substituted silver for some of the gold, and the famous mathematician and engineer Archimedes was charged with solving the mystery without destroying the object itself. Think. Think. Think.

As he was thinking about the problem in the bathtub, Archimedes noticed the displacement of the water, jumped out of the tub naked, and ran around shouting, "Eureka, eureka" (I have found it). Archimedes made two masses that weighed the same as the crown, one of gold and the other of silver, then measured the displacement when he placed them separately in a vessel completely filled with water.

He found that more water ran out of the vessel when he placed the crown in it than ran out when he placed an equal mass of gold in the same amount of water, proving the craftsman to be guilty. It is unclear from reading Vitruvius, who was writing long after the fact, how precise Archimedes's measurements were and exactly how he determined the mass of an irregular object shaped like a wreath, or how he immersed the objects in the water without splashing some out. It has been speculated that he may have used both his Law of Buoyancy and his Law of the Lever to carry out this forensic experiment.

Answer: Bite marks

Also called forensic dentistry, forensic odontology is concerned with evidence involving the teeth, including both physical evidence found on a victim's body and records kept by dentists in the normal course of their practice. Such evidence can help identify human remains, determine a victim's age and general health, and evaluate bite marks or other dental evidence that can identify the perpetrator of a crime. Bite mark evidence was used for the first time in the Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts in 1692 to convict and execute Rev. George Burroughs, who was said to have bitten and otherwise abused his victims to coerce them into witchcraft. Burroughs was forced to open his mouth so that the court could compare his teeth to the bite marks on the victims.

This "scientific" observation was enough to convince the court that he was guilty. Fast forward to the 20th century and you'll find Ted Bundy convicted on bite mark evidence. Dental evidence has become well-established over time, especially in the identification of human remains both as victims of crime and victims of mass disasters.

Answer: Bones

Osteology is the study of bones, which plays a major role in forensic anthropology. Skeletal remains reveal a great deal to the educated eye. Long bones, such as the femur, can yield an approximate age as well as height and gender. The pelvis, sternum, and certain bones of the head can indicate gender and aspects of ancestry. Evidence of trauma, nutrition, and life-style may yield important information for investigators. Mathematical formulae have been developed for deriving conclusions from the measurements and other data collected from bones.

The Forensic Anthropology Data Bank at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and other databases developed by universities and government agencies in the late 20th and early 21st centuries allow calculations with a precision Thomas Dwight could hardly have dreamed of a hundred years earlier.

Answer: Stethoscope

Fears of being buried alive loomed large for people in the years before modern technology made measurement of brain waves and heartbeats possible. To make sure a person was really dead, family members would sit with the corpse until it began decomposing, and doctors would administer painful stimuli or enemas of tobacco smoke (!) to test for signs of life. So René Laennec's introduction of the stethoscope to detect a heartbeat was no small advance. Early stethoscopes were simple, but the technology has developed greatly over the years, with digital versions being used in the 21st century.

The electrocardiogram, developed in the early 20th century and earning a Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1924 for Dutch physician Willem Einthoven, further advanced the ability of forensic scientists to determine that death has occurred.

Answer: Arsenic

In the late 1700s, scientists had discovered ways of detecting arsenic in substances, one of these being the "mirror test" developed by Johann Metzger in 1787, which added charcoal to a substance suspected of containing arsenic, then heated it to expose a tell-tale shiny black powder on a mirror.

Other tests were developed over the following decades, but in 1832, chemist James Marsh developed a test in response to the trial of a man accused of killing his grandfather with arsenic-laced coffee. The Marsh Test could find arsenic in the human body.

The first time this test, and thus forensic toxicology, was used successfully in a trial was when Madame Marie Lafarge was accused of poisoning her husband in 1840 in Tulle, France. Mathieu Orfila's skilled examination of the results of the Marsh test on the exhumed remains of Charles Lafarge proved to the court that Madame Lafarge was guilty.

This case and his writings earned Orfila the tag "father of modern toxicology". Paracelsus, who studied poisons in the 1500s, has been called the "father of toxicology" and is perhaps best known in the field of forensic science for his observation that almost any substance can be toxic in large amounts. Toxicology has been important historically and has grown to be a major division of the field of forensic science.

Answer: Serology

Serology is an important field of forensic science that performs tests on blood and other bodily fluids, including saliva, sweat, urine, feces, and semen. Serology is especially useful in the investigation of rape and other sex crimes, helping to determine not only who committed a crime but sometimes even when (or if) that crime took place. Before the advent of DNA testing in the 1980s and beyond, testing for blood type provided a valuable tool in the elimination of suspects in a crime, and it continues to be used today. Austrian biologist and physician Karl Landsteiner earned the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1930 for three decades of work on blood typing.

He also is credited with the discovery of the polio virus. In 1915, a researcher at the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Turin, Dr. Leon Lattes, used blood typing and his method of reconstituting dried blood to clear an accused murderer of guilt, based on the blood type of stains on his coat.

Answer: "Every contact leaves a trace."

Locard can be credited with early developments in the field of forensic dactylography (fingerprint analysis) and with setting up the first forensic science laboratory associated with a police department, in 1910, in a small attic space in Lyon, France, where he later established the Institute of Criminalistics at the University of Lyon.

However, the principle named for him is a basic underpinning of all forensic science. It states that if one object comes into contact with another object, something will transfer from one to the other, in both directions. Trace evidence may include fibers, hairs, glass fragments, paint chips, or any other particle that can adhere to a surface. Each type of trace evidence can be analyzed using scientific methods specific to that item. "To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction" is Newton's third law of motion; and "Keep it simple, stupid" could be considered a paraphrase of Occam's Razor. "If anything can go wrong - it will" is popularly known as Murphy's Law.

Answer: Ballistics

One of the first forensics laboratories in the United States was established at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, as a direct result of the testimony of Dr. Goddard, who was a Johns Hopkins trained cardiologist but also served as a colonel in the U.S. Army and became one of the earliest experts in the field of forensic ballistics, testifying at another major trial earlier in the 1920s. Two of the jurors who had been on the panel at the coroner's inquest investigating the St. Valentine's Day Massacre financed this comprehensive forensics lab that included ballistics as well as fingerprinting and analysis of blood and other physical evidence. Goddard used a comparison microscope, a new invention developed by Philip O. Gravelle that consists of two microscopes attached with a bridge, allowing forensic scientists to examine and simultaneously compare the unique marks and striations left on each bullet or cartridge case by the various parts of a particular firearm.

This close examination of "tool marks" came to be called "ballistic fingerprinting" - a concept so familiar to most viewers of crime dramas it is hard to believe it was a 20th century discovery.

Answer: Deoxyribonucleic acid

DNA would have been too easy! Of course, the answer is deoxyribonucleic acid. Two of the other choices are real organic substances. I made up dimorphic nitrogen alcohols. In the 1970s, when we science fans first tried to puzzle out Watson and Crick's book "The Double Helix" who would have imagined that DNA and forensic science would have become so intertwined in the popular imagination? Forensic scientists obtain DNA from skin cells, hair, saliva, blood, semen, and urine. Different methods are used for breaking down different types of samples into material that can be imaged for analysis, and none of these is as simple as audiences of popular crime shows might think.

As with any other kind of trace evidence, forensic analysis of DNA is basically a matter of comparison. DNA evidence is presented in court as a probability rather than absolute proof.

In addition to helping to convict criminals guilty of a crime, DNA evidence is sometimes used to free prisoners who have been wrongfully convicted.