Long before
CSI appeared on television,
Arthur Conan Doyle amazed us with his
Sherlock Holmes stories. But although
postmortem examinations have taken place dating back to 2000 BC, it wasn't until many years after the Sherlock Holmes books were written that police departments took
forensic pathology seriously. A recent
PBS program
How Sherlock Holmes Changed the World goes into depth on how nineteenth century scientists took many of Sherlock Holmes' observations from the fictional novels and studied them.
Edmund Locard was a French scientist who improved the study of fingerprints and adopted the Sherlock Holmes theory that every contact leaves a trace. One particular case he helped to solve was when a man,
Emile Gourbin, strangled his girlfriend. After committing the murder, he returned home and changed the time on the clocks before friends arrived to play cards, thus giving him an alibi for the time of death. Locard, following his belief that trace is always exchanged, scraped Emile Gourbin's nails and discovered a pink substance that matched the face powder worn by the victim. Emile Gourbin then confessed to the murder.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself was often asked to solve crimes, sometimes by a person who had been convicted without sufficient evidence. His involvement resulted in the Court of Criminal Appeal being formed in both England and Scotland. You can read more about
Arthur Conan Doyle true crime cases
here.
Another series I found based on Victorian Era forensic crime solving is
Murdoch Mysteries. This is a Canadian series, but I found the DVDs at our local library. These are based on the books by
Maureen Jennings.
