History of Hair & Fiber Analysis

Hair analysis is a generally new thing in the world of forensics. Because everyone’s hair nearly as unique as their fingerprints it gives investigators more information about a crime scene.

A French scientist by the name of Edmond Locard, discovered that people would continually pick up and transfer minute pieces of dust, hair, fibers and other materials without even knowing it. Locard then realized that these exchanges of material would be key to analyzing a crime scene. Because of this the Locard Exchange Principle had become the foundation for forensic science in the early 1900’s.

Francois Goron was one of the very first investigators to try to use hair in order to identify a murderer. In his first case using hair analysis he found that the hairs he collected would be of no use because it could not be identified as human at the time. Later in the year 1899 Goron tried once more and was able to find out that a murder victim’s hair had been dyed. Because of this information it eventually led to the arrest of the murderer and it was the first successful crime solved by using forensic hair tests.

In 1910 a comprehensive study of hair was published by the French forensic scientists Victor Balthazard and Marcelle Lambert. The study was titled Le Poil de l’Homme et des animaux or in English The Hair of Man and Animals. In this study it included various microscopic studies about the hairs from many animals.

In 1934 the use of a comparison microscope was first used by Dr. Sydney Smith. The comparison microscope was used in order to perform side-by-side analysis of hairs that were collected from a crime scene.

Comparison Microscope

Hair comparison through the use of a comparison microscope