Although I suppose that the scientific police will not be very happy, because of the unreal investigations, the American TV series Crime Scene Investigation or CSI on forensic scientists has become very popular. Pure science fiction technology mixed with original research methods and accompanied by an entomology fanatic, Gil Grissom , which uses insects to solve cases. And as we have said here on many occasions... nothing new under the sun .
If we go back to 13th century China, we will find the first case where forensic entomology was used to solve a murder case. In 1235 the Chinese Sung Tz'u (not to be confused with Sun Tzu , the general, military strategist, philosopher and author of the book «The art of war «) wrote the book «The Washing Away of Wrongs» (The laundering of grievances) on forensic investigations on how to examine the body and the crime scene, determine the causes of death... and the first case of applied forensic entomology to solve a case is detailed:
One fine day a dead farmer appeared in a rice field and, as usually happens in these cases, nobody knew anything. When the local magistrate checked the body, he was able to determine that the murder weapon had been a sickle like the ones used to harvest rice. He gathered all the peasants of the town, lined them up and ordered them all to put their sickle on the ground next to them. After a while, he pointed to one of the peasants as guilty of the crime... Flies were swarming on his sickle . Although the sickles were all clean, the flies were attracted to the traces of blood that we already know from the series, which is very difficult to clean.
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