Philip Graham and Mariano Pacada
5/6/11
Forensics, F
History of Forensic Entomology
-The first documented account of forensic entomology is from 13th century China in the text
book The Washing Away of Wrongs. Sung Tz’u, a Chinese lawyer and death investigator
recorded the case. One day there was a stabbing near a rice field. The day after the killing a
death investigator ordered the workers to lay down their sickles. Traces of blood led flies to one
worker’s sickle. When confronted about this the worker confessed to his crimes.
-Recorded uses of entomology tapered off after this event. In the following centuries many
doctors, scientist and artist studied human decomposition. They noted the way maggots fed on
the dead bodies and how blow flies laid their eggs.
-Mass exhumations in France and Germany during the 18th and 19th centuries gave opportunities
for scientist and doctors to examine and observe human decomposition.
-The first forensic entomology case to include a PMI (postmortem interval) occurred in 1855. In
this case Dr. Louis Francois Etienne Bergeret performed an autopsy on the body of a mummified
infant discovered in the wall of a Parisian house. Suspicion fell onto the current homeowners.
The doctor used his knowledge of the life cycle of insects to determine that the infant had died
several years earlier in 1848. Bergeret noticed that a flesh fly, Sarcophaga canaria, had fed on
the body in 1848. The next year mites laid their eggs in the dried corpse. By knowing and
employing his knowledge of entomology Bergeret was able to use the life cycles of subsequent
species identified in order to nail down the fact that the infant had died in 1848 and that the
current homeowners were innocent. After the police were convinced of the current homeowners’
innocence they focused their interest on the homeowners of the house in 1848. The 1848
homeowners were arrested and convicted of their crime.
-Jean Pierre Megnin, a French veterinarian and entomologist, made the next big contributions to
forensic entomology in 1887 and 1894. In 1887 he released a study on forensic entomology
named the Fauna of the Tombs. In 1894 he released another study named The Fauna of
Cadavers-Application of Entomology to Forensic Medicine. In these two studies Megnin
studied and identified the stages of human decomposition. Megnin showed that all the stages
varied in speed and were dependent upon environmental conditions, temperature, and if the
corpse were clothed or not. Megnin’s books became the basis for forensic entomologists.
Because of Megnin’s works forensic entomology use spread all over Western Europe and North
America, particularly Canada.
-From the time of Megnin to about the 1990s forensic entomology did not play as big of a role as
it does today. This was mainly due to lack of interest, underfunding for research, a lack of
technology and knowledge, and other priorities. It wasn’t until the mid 90s early 2000s that
forensic entomology was able to become its own science.