A Look at Joseph Leidy

Joseph Leidy is well known for his work with Paleontology but more so with microscopy and beyond. He would be one of the most renowned professors in the United States, teaching anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania. He would publish a serous effort entitled "Extinct Fauna of Dakota and Nebraska" in 1869, which would prove to be an incredible look at the history of North America for the time. Leidy was born in 1823, to a well off family in Philadelphia.

It would be his work in paleontology that would help him establish a name for himself in the scientific community, even though hit was often times reserved for only those that were wealthy and used it as a hobby. He would study and recover many fossils and skeletons of dinosaur remains on the eastern coast of the United States. He would end up finding one of the first nearly complete remains of a dinosaur, which to this day is a remarkable finding. He found it in New Jersey, and would go on to detail that dinosaurs could in fact end up on two feet, a notion that was not adopted at the time. He would go on to further detail several discoveries of species and specimens relating to the finds that he worked on, many of which were unknown before his writings and search.

It wasn't just the field of dino-discovery that had Leidy working hard, it was in the field of studying parasites that he would make serious health finds. For instance, he would be one of the first to discover that trichinosis was caused by a parasite, and that would help in the medical field a great deal. As time went on medical science would find that it was parasitic roots that caused a great deal of problems in the human condition over time.

Perhaps one of the more fascinating things about Joseph Leidy's work was with the microscope. While some used it primarily as a tool to view close up, he would find ways to use it that others just didn't think about. It was his work with microscopy that would lead to what is now common in the world of criminal justice, which is forensic science. Before his discoveries in 1846, microscopes were not utilized to prosecute criminals that committed violent crimes, and even though it would not be as impressive as today's standards, he was perhaps the first person to utilize this science to help convict a murder suspect. It was in a mystery case that he would use his skills to find an accused murderer had blood on the fabrics of his clothes, and even though there was alibi, would use the microscope to properly differentiate between chicken blood and human blood. After this work, the suspect in custody would confess, and the birth of forensics would make serious strides afterwards.

Leidy would go on to publish over 550 works of science, and was one of the many scientific minds that agreed and promoted Darwin's view son evolution. He passed away in 1891, and his memory is still revered in scientific circles.

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