Illustrated Guide to Home Forensic Science Experiments

To Edmond Locard (1877 - 1966), often called the French Sherlock Holmes, who, as a professor of forensic medicine and criminology at the University of Lyons, in 1910 established the world’s first police crime laboratory. Locard’s lab occupied two attic rooms staffed by two assistants provided grudgingly by the Lyons police department, and was initially less well equipped than the home forensics lab we used in writing this book. Despite these limited resources, Locard’s results soon convinced police departments worldwide, including Scotland Yard and the FBI, to found their own crime labs.

Locard was the first to state the fundamental principle of forensic science, now known as Locard’s Exchange Principle: “Wherever he steps, whatever he touches, ...