In the middle of 19th century, Justice, which for centuries was in search of objective and impartial evidence as against the conventional oral testimony of unwilling, hostile and unobservant witnesses, turned to science for assistance. At the same time Sir Arthur Conan Doyle popularised scientific crime detection methods through his fictional character Sherlock Holmes. This certainly helped to publicise amongst the scientists as well as criminal investigators the idea that science could aid in the detection and investigation of crime.

Mathieu Orfila of Paris is recognised as the father of modern toxicology. He developed methods for scientific chemical analysis of poisons. Alphonse Bertillon of France was the first to evolve a scientific system of personal identification. In 1879 he developed anthropometry, a systematic procedure of taking a series of body measurements to facilitate distinguishing one individual from another. With the invention of photography, he was the first to find its use in criminal investigation. In 1881, he began to take standard pictures of all French criminals and file them in the Bureau of identification in Paris. He further systematised the technique of ‘Portrait Parle’  a method of identifying culprits from descriptions provided by victims and witnesses. He is also known as the father of criminal identification systems.

Francis Galton a scientist from U.K undertook the first systematic study of fingerprints. He developed a methodology of classifying the fingerprints for filing purposes. In 1892, he published a book on ‘Fingerprints’, giving a sound statistical proof of uniqueness of personal identification through fingerprints.

Hans Gross from Austria, a lawyer by profession, spent many years studying and developing the principles of criminal investigation. This resulted in the publication of his classic book in 1893,’Handbuch fur Untersu chnugsrichter’, which was later published in English as ‘Criminal Investigation’

Edmond Locard of France in 1910 established a police laboratory in Lyons and later founded the Institute of Criminalistics at the University of Lyons. He propounded the ‘principle of exchange’ which forms the basis of forensic examination of physical evidence

Dr. Karl Landsteiner, in 1901 discovered that blood can be grouped into different categories. Calvin Goddard and US Army Colonel, perfected the science of ballistics. He developed a comparison microscope for the comparison of crime and tested fired bullets. Albert Osborn developed fundamental principles of document examination. He wrote a classic book ’Questioned Documents’ which is a primary reference book for document experts.