Beginnings of the science of forensic toxicology

This is an interesting article for authors who are either researching the history of forensics or writing 19th century murder mysteries (link below).

I confess that I’ve always been fascinated by the use of scientific methods in the investigation of murder…long before CSI ever gained such high visibility in popular culture.  I remember attending my first rather harrowing presentation by two murder detectives lecturing on forensics 20 years ago at a Novelists Inc. conference. They showed slides of real murder scenes, and closeups of dead bodies in various stages of decomposition.  We, the audience (all published authors eager to learn about police and laboratory techniques) were challenged to determine, from the evidence presented, whether the dead person had died a natural death….or been murdered.

I think all of us had a little trouble holding on to our lunches during the explanation of various stages of decomp (and the gory pictures!), but just about everybody gutted it out and stayed for the entire lecture.  We all learned a lot.

How murder by nicotine poisoning led to the science of forensic toxicology:http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/05/nicotine-and-the-chemistry-of-murder/