Practical Forensic Microscopy

Book excerpt: Forensic Microscopy: A Laboratory Manual will provide the student with a practical overview and understanding of the various microscopes and microscopic techniques employed within the field of forensic science. Each laboratory experiment has been carefully designed to cover the variety of evidence disciplines within the forensic science field with carefully set out objectives, explanations of each topic and worksheets to help students compile and analyse their results. The emphasis is placed on the practical aspects of the analysis to enrich student understanding through hands on experience. The experiments move from basic through to specialised and have been developed to cover a variety of evidence disciplines within forensic science field. The emphasis is placed on techniques currently used by trace examiners. This unique, forensic focused, microscopy laboratory manual provides objectives for each topic covered with experiments designed to reinforce what has been learnt along with end of chapter questions, report requirements and numerous references for further reading. Impression evidence such as fingerprints, shoe tread patterns, tool marks and firearms will be analysed using simple stereomicroscopic techniques. Body fluids drug and trace evidence (e.g. paint glass hair fibre) will be covered by a variety of microscopes and specialized microscopic techniques.