Definition, History and Types of Forensic Science

A Report Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements in Specialization Course 7
(Science of Criminalistics)

Second Semester, SY 2020-2021

NAGA COLLEGE FOUNDATION, INC.

College of Criminal Justice Education
Division of Graduate School
M.T. Villanueva Avenue,
Naga City

Submitted to:

DR. ARNOLD F. ABIOG

Professor

NATHALIE IVY SJ. BULAO

Submitted by:
 TOPIC OUTLINE

I. OBJECTIVES

II. INTRODUCTION

III. DISCUSSION

A. Definition of Forensic Science

B History and Evolution of Forensic Science

C. Types of Forensic Science

IV. RELATED LAWS

V. CONCLUSION

VI. RECOMMENDATION

VII. REFERENCES
I. OBJECTIVES

At the end of the discussion, the students should be able to:

1. To define criminalistics or Forensic Science
2. To know the significance of these forensic areas in criminal investigation; and
3. To know the History and Evolution of Forensic Science

II. INTRODUCTION

Forensic science is the application of science in answering questions of

legal importance. Devoted to the administration of safe justice, forensic science
plays a crucial role in the criminal justice system (CJS). It can assist law
enforcement authorities and the courts in the resolution of crime by facilitating
the identification and apprehension of crime perpetrators. The use of forensic
science involves crime scene evidence gathering, developing investigative
strategies and the processing of evidential materials that are relevant in case.

III DISCUSSION

A. DEFINITION OF FORENSIC SCIENCE

 Forensic comes from the Latin word “forensis” which stands for “in an open
court” or “public”
 The term science comes from the Latin word ”scientia”, meaning “knowledge”.
 Science in service to the law
– “…the application of science to those criminal and civil laws that are enforced
by police agencies in the criminal justice system.”
-R. Saferstein
 Forensic science, also known as criminalistics, is the application
of science to criminal and civil laws, mainly—on the criminal side—during criminal
investigation, as governed by the legal standards of admissible
evidence and criminal procedure.
 Forensic scientists collect, preserve, and analyze scientific evidence during the
course of an investigation. While some forensic scientists travel to the scene of the
crime to collect the evidence themselves, others occupy a laboratory role,
performing analysis on objects brought to them by other individuals.
In addition to their laboratory role, forensic scientists testify as expert witnesses in
both criminal and civil cases and can work for either the prosecution or the defense.

B. History and Evolution of Forensic Science

Forensic science as a part of the modern-day criminal justice system is still

in its formative years. Interestingly, the importance of forensic science dates
back to some of the ancient civilizations. The earliest application of
forensic science dates back to the ancient Greek and Roman societies.

Those civilizations made significant contributions to the field of medicine,

especially pharmacology. Their research on the production, use, and symptoms
of toxins made the study of their use in past murders possible.
The ancient world lacked standardized forensic practices, which enabled
criminals to escape punishment. Criminal investigations and trials relied heavily
on forced confessions and witness testimony. However, ancient sources do
contain several accounts of techniques that foreshadow concepts in forensic
science developed centuries later.

 44 BC, Roman Physician Antistius

An autopsy or post mortem is a medical examination of a corpse to
determine the cause and manner of death. The first surviving record of such an
event dates back to 44 BC, when on the March 15, Gaius Julius Caesar,
celebrated general and dictator of Rome was killed during a meeting of the
Senate. Now he was dead, his body punctured with 23 stab wounds, all served
on him by members of the Senate itself.
 Caesar’s body was taken back to his home and examined by a doctor
named Antistius. The findings of Antistius’s examination were then reported to
the populace in the forum and recorded for posterity- the first recorded account
of an autopsy.
Antistius’s autopsy records the detail of Caesar’s death- including the
deathblow that killed him. But when reinterpreted by modern experts, in
conjunction with contemporary accounts of the assassination and the events
leading up to it, a startling possibility emerges one in which Caesar himself was
complicit in his own murder.
 3000 BC, Egyptians
The methods of embalming, or treating the dead body, that the ancient
Egyptians used is called mummification. Using special processes, the Egyptians
removed all moisture from the body, leaving only a dried form that would not
easily decay. It was important in their religion to preserve the dead body in as
life-like a manner as possible. So successful were they that today we can view
the mummified body of an Egyptian and have a good idea of what he or she
looked like in life, 3000 years ago.
About 2600 B.C., during the Fourth and Fifth Dynasties, Egyptians
probably began to mummify the dead intentionally. The practice continued and
developed for well over 2,000 years, into the Roman Period (ca. 30 B.C.–A.D.
364). Within any one period the quality of the mummification varied, depending
on the price paid for it. The best prepared and preserved mummies are from the
Eighteenth through the Twentieth Dynasties of the New Kingdom (ca. 1570–
1075 B.C.) and include those of Tutankhamen and other well-known pharaohs.
 1st century AD, Roman orator and jurist Quintilian
Early in the 1st century AD, Roman orator and jurist Quintilian used basic
forensics to acquit an innocent.
The Roman model forms the foundation of the modern day court and
legal system. Thus, the application of scientific principles in the examination of
evidence in ancient Rome is not surprising. However, with the fall of the Roman
 Empire in the West, the applications of forensic science in criminal justice
stagnated over the next millennium.

A bloody handprint looms large in an instructional legal case written up by

the Roman jurist Quintilian or one of his students in the early 2nd century AD.
The case is titled "Paries Palmatus" or "The Wall of Handprints" and involves a
blind son accused of stabbing his father in his sleep in order to obtain his
inheritance. Purportedly, the blind man took his sword from his room, walked
across the house in the dead of night, entered his father and stepmother's
bedroom, and stabbed his father once, killing him instantly and not waking up
his stepmother, who found her husband dead in bed when she awoke. A trail of
bloody handprints led from the parents' room back to the blind son's room, and
his blood-covered sword was found as well.

Quintilian's proposed defense, however, is that the stepmother did it,

upset because she would lose out on the father's fortune to his blind son -- so
she framed the blind man using his own father's blood

 13th Century, The book Xi Yuan Lu (The Washing Away of Wrongs)

Xi Yuan Lu is the first written testimony of the use of medicine and
entomology to solve crimes. This book is one of the earliest available literature to
help determine the cause of death.

The book explained how to distinguish an accidental death from a murder

by examining the weapon used to cause death. It threw light upon important
topics such as:
o How to preserve evidence during the examination process?
o How to make an antiseptic?
o How to extract a hidden injury from dead bodies and bones?
o How to calculate the time of death based on the weather and insects? and
 o How to wash a dead body for examination?

 16th Century, Fortunato Fidelis and Paolo Zacchia

Forensic science became quite widespread in 16th century Europe. Medics

began to use their knowledge to investigate the cause of death. Ambrose Paré, a
French army surgeon, two Italian surgeons, Fortunato Fidelis and Paolo Zacchia
were some of the pioneers in this field.

Then we have a series of written record like “A Treatise on Forensic

Medicine and Public Health” by the French physician Fodéré and “The Complete
System of Police Medicine” by the German medic Johann Peter Franck and the
first dissertation on systematic document examination published by François
Demelle of France. In 1686, Marcello Malpighi, a professor of anatomy at the
University of Bologna, identified the fingerprint method.

 1773, Carl Wilhelm Scheele

In 1775, Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheel devised away of detecting

arsenous oxide, simple arsenic, in corpses, although only in large quantities. This
investigation was expanded in 1806, by German chemist Valentin Ross, who
learned to detect the poison in the walls of a victim’s stomach, and by English
chemist James Marsh, who used chemical processes to confirm arsenic as the
cause of death in an 1836 murder trial.

 1880, Francis Galton

Sir Francis Galton published his book, "Finger Prints" in 1892, establishing the
individuality and permanence of fingerprints. The book included the first
published classification system for fingerprints. In 1893, Galton published the
book "Decipherment of Blurred Finger Prints," and 1895 the book "Fingerprint
Directories."
 Galton's primary interest in fingerprints was as an aid in determining heredity
and racial background. While he soon discovered fingerprints offered no firm
clues to an individual's intelligence or genetic history, he was able to scientifically
prove what Herschel and Faulds already suspected: that fingerprints do not
change over the course of an individual's lifetime, and that no two fingerprints
are exactly the same.

  1814, Mathieu Orfila

Although poisons have been studied and written about since the ninth
century, the true origin of modern toxicology goes back to the early 1800’s when
a man named Mathieu Orfila produced a scientific work titled Traité des poisons:
tires des règnes mineral, vegetal et animal; ou Toxicologie générale . Orfila
analyzed poison’s effects on humans and created a method of detecting the
presence of arsenic within murder victims. His book discussed the techniques he
devised, and soon became a commonly used guideline for murder cases in which
detectives suspected the use of poison.
One of the first cases to utilize Orfila’s discoveries occurred in 1840, when
Marie LaFarge was accused of poisoning her husband. When investigators were
unable to find any arsenic traces within the corpse, they called in Orfila to
personally run some tests. He found the evidence the prosecution was looking
for, and LaFarge was found guilty of murder.

 1835, Henry Goddard

Scotland Yard’s Henry Goddard became the first in 1835 to connect a bullet

to a murder weapon using physical analysis.
To determine whether or not a particular gun has fired a bullet requires a
comparison of the bullet with one that has been test-fired from the suspect’s
weapon. Calvin Goddard, a US Army colonel, refined the techniques of such an
examination by using the comparison microscope. Goddard’s expertise
 established the comparison microscope as the indispensable tool of the modern
firearms examiner.

 1896, Edward Henry

In 1891, Edward Richard Henry read the book Finger Prints written by
Francis Galton. He visited Francis Galton’s laboratory in Kensington (Sonderegger
and Peter 2012). Francis Galton shared his knowledge about fingerprint and also
the research works of Herschel and Faulds. This helped Edward Richard Henry to
develop a mathematical formula to classify and organize the 10 fingerprints.
 1910, Edmond Locard

Edmond Locard’s concept that “everything leaves a trace” formed the basis of

what is now called Locard’s Exchange Principle.

Locard’s Exchange Principle states that everything and everyone that enters a
crime scene leaves some piece of evidence behind. This is extensively used by a
forensic investigator in crime scene investigations.

Conversely, he also established that everyone and everything takes some

piece of the crime scene with them when they leave.
C. TYPES OF FORENSIC SCIENCE

1. Forensic Toxicology
Toxicology refers to the study of adverse effects of chemicals (ex: drugs,
alcohol) on the human body. So forensic toxicology is looking at these effects in
the context of the law. They analyze various specimens — including blood, urine,
tissues, hair, and fluids (such as from the eye, liver, or brain) — and then
interpret the results.
Forensic toxicologists focus on one of three main areas:
 Post-mortem toxicology: helping to identify the cause or manner of death.
 Human performance toxicology: to determine impairment during a crime.
 Forensic drug testing
2. Forensic Pathology
Pathology is derived from the Greek words pathos, meaning suffering and
logos meaning discourse" or study. It is the science or study of disease. A
pathologist studies the cause or nature of the diseases and identifies the changes
diseases create in the human body. Forensic pathology is a branch of pathology
which is concerned with determining the cause of death by examination of a
corpse. The autopsy is performed by the pathologist at the request of medical
examiner usually during the conduct of scientific investigation, Whether it is
either criminal cases or civil disputes.
The two main branches of forensic pathology are as follows: (1) Anatomic
Pathology, (2) Clinical Pathology.
3. Forensic Odontology
Forensic odontology is the application of dental science to legal
investigations, primarily involving the identification of the offender by comparing
dental records to a bite mark left on the victim or at the scene, or identification
of human remains based on dental records.

Criminals have been known to leave bite mark impressions at the crime
scene, whether it be in food, chewing gum or, more commonly, on the victim.
Dental identification plays an important role when identification of remains of
deceased person is skeletonized, decomposed, burned or dismembered and is
invalid by visual or fingerprint methods.
4. Forensic Entomology
Forensic entomology is the study of insects/arthropods in criminal
investigation. Right from the early stages insects are attracted to the
decomposing body and may lay eggs in it. By studying the insect population and
the developing larval stages, forensic scientists can estimate the postmortem
index, any change in position of the corpse as well as the cause of death.
These insect colonizers can be used to estimate the time of death i.e.,
time interval between death and corpse discovery, also called postmortem index
 (PMI), movement of the corpse, manner and cause of death and association of
suspects at the death scene.

5. Forensic Ballistics

This method of crime detection and identification determines whether the

bullet extracted from a victim or recovered from the crime scene cam from a
suspected firearm. It also determines the caliber type and make of firearm from
which a bullet or shell was fired if no firearm was recovered. It also determines if
a firearm is serviceable or not and if bullets and shell came from one and the
same firearm.

6. Forensic DNA analysis

DNA Analysis also called DNA profiling is a forensic technique in criminal
investigations, comparing criminal suspects' profiles to DNA evidence so as to
assess the likelihood of their involvement in the crime. It is also used
in parentage testing, to establish immigration eligibility, and in genealogical and
medical research. The biological material used to determine a DNA profile include
blood, semen, saliva, urine, feces, hair, teeth, bone, tissue and cells. As
technology advances, forensic scientists are able to analyze smaller and smaller
biological samples to develop a DNA profile.
7. Forensic Anthropology
Is a branch of physical anthropology, the study of humans and their
ancestors. Forensic anthropology deals with identifying people who cannot be
identified through soft tissues feature. Typically forensic anthropologists, analyze
skeletal remains to determine if they are humans and, if so, the age, sex, height,
race, and skeletal injury. A forensic anthropologist may also be of assistance in
creating facial reconstructions to aid in the identification of skeletal remains.
8. Questioned Document
This method of examination is used to determine the presence of
alterations, erasure, superimposition, insertions and defalcations in a questioned
 document. It also determines whether the handwriting is genuine or not and
identify the writer especially if the letter is poison letter or threats. It is also an
effective tool in determining counterfeit bills, stamps, labels, etc. and to
determine the make and model of the type writer used in making spurious or
poisoned letters.
9. Forensic Fingerprint
Fingerprint identification or dactyloscopy is the oldest and highly reliable
means of identifying a person whether dead or alive. A person who touched fixed
or movable object leaves an impression or fingerprint on the object surface
called latent print. Through the use of various techniques and methods this
latent prints can be lifted, developed and preserved for comparison with prints
taken from criminals, suspects and other persons who were at the crime scene.
This method is also used to establish the identity of known or unknown deceased
persons whose identification is subject to question by comparing his fingerprints
with those on records.
10. Forensic Photography
Sometimes referred to as forensic imaging or crime scene photography.
The art of producing an accurate reproduction of a scene or an accident for the
benefit of a court or preservation of evidence. It is a part of the process of
evidence collection.

11. Digital Forensic

Today, law enforcement and labs are dealing with crimes (and, thus,
evidence) that didn’t exist decades ago. This means the field of forensics will
continue to evolve as technology changes, and the area of digital and multimedia
sciences is one of those ever-changing areas. forensic professionals in this
discipline examine hardware tools, software applications, and digital files (audio,
text, image, video, etc.) to find and analyze evidence.
 Here are just a few examples of a digital forensic scientist’s duties:

 Determining if a digital image has been altered.

 Analyzing acoustics of a recording.
 Finding out what devices connected to a system.
 Determining if files have been deleted from a drive or device.
 Locating a remote system or user.
 Finding a victim or suspect based on data.

IV. RELATED LAWS

 RULE ON DNA EVIDENCE., A.M. No. 06-11-5-SC (2 October 2007)

Section 1. Scope. – This Rule shall apply whenever DNA evidence, as defined
in Section 3 hereof, is offered, used, or proposed to be offered or used as
evidence in all criminal and civil actions as well as special proceedings.
 House Bill 9072 or the “Mandatory Autopsy Law”. AN ACT REQUIRING
MANDATORY AUTOPSY ON BODIES OF CRIME VICTIMS, DEATHS UNDER
MYSTERIOS AND SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES.
 Republic Act No.10591, otherwise known as “THE COMPREHENSIVE
LAW ON FIREARMS AND AMMUNITION AND PROVIDING PENALTIES
FOR VIOLATIONS THEREOF”, was signed into law by the President of the
Philippines on May 29, 2013; Section 6. Ownership of Firearms by the
National Government., 6.4 Procurement of firearms by Law Enforcement
Agencies shall undergo mandatory ballistics testing and registration for record
purposes.

V. CONCLUSION

The primary aim of forensic science is to assist law enforcement agencies and
the legal system in fulfilling their primary functions such as the prevention, detection,
and investigation of crime, and the delivery of justice. Before forensic evidence is
admitted in the Court, the techniques to find out that evidence must be properly
studied and their accuracy must be verified.

VI. RECOMMENDATION

As criminality arises and criminals are better than ever technologies are
improving, it must up to date and must be available in the Philippines, forensic
examiners must be skillful and have expertise for the new technologies that might later
be useful and must undergo seminars and training that would be beneficial to them and
to the prosecution of criminals.

VII. REFERENCES

 Forensic Science. (17 March 2021). In Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forensic_science
 Exploring the History of Forensic Science through the ages, 2019. Incognito
Forensic Foundation. https://ifflab.org/history-of-forensic-science/
 Ancient Egypt, Egyptian Mummies (n.d) Smithsonian.
https://www.si.edu/spotlight/ancient-egypt/mummies
 Campbell, M & Robertson, H., (2020 November, 11). The Entire History of the
Autopsy.https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a25633042/autopsy-
history/
 Killgrove, K., (2018, November 28). These Three Forensic Science Techniques
From Ancient Rome Reveal Shocking Gaps In Modern Methods.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2018/11/28/these-three-forensic-
science-techniques-from-ancient-rome-reveal-shocking-gaps-in-modern-
methods/?sh=3487a7c858fe
 The History of Fingerprints. (2021 March 9). https://onin.com/fp/fphistory.html
 Toxicology of Poisons (2021). Crime Museum.
https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/forensic-investigation/toxicology-of-
poisons/
 Forensic Odontology (n.d) The Forensic Library.
https://aboutforensics.co.uk/forensic-odontology/#:~:text=Forensic
%20odontology%20is%20the%20application,remains%20based%20on
%20dental%20records.
 Joseph, I, Matthew D, Sathyan P, & Vargheese G., (2011 July 3) The use of
insects in forensic investigations: An overview on the scope of forensic
entomology. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3296382/
 Soriano, O., (2012). Notes in FORENSIC MEDICINE With Pathology &
Entomology. http://docshare04.docshare.tips/files/23988/239885805.pdf
 Wilson, D., (2008) Forensic Procedures for Boundary and Title Investigation.
 Peckley, M., (2016) Essentials of Criminalistics.