| John A. Larson | |
|---|---|
| Born | 11 December 1892 Shelburne, Nova Scotia, Canada |
| Died | 1 October 1965 Berkeley |
| Residence | Berkeley, California |
| Citizenship | U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Medicine Criminology |
| Alma mater | University of California, Berkeley |
| Known for | Criminology, Polygraphy |
John Augustus Larson was a police officer of the Berkeley Police Department, California, United States, and famous for his invention of modern polygraph used in forensic investigations.[1] He was the first American police officer having an academic doctorate and to use polygraph in criminal investigations.[2][3] After famed career in criminal investigation, he died of heart attack in Nashville, Tennessee at the age of 72.[4]
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Larson was born in Shelburne, Nova Scotia, Canada, of Nordic parents. His family moved to New England in his early childhood, and his parents soon divorced. He studied biology at the Boston University earning his degree through doing odd jobs to support himself, from being a busboy, paperboy, stonecutter to elevator operator. In 1915 he earned his master degree with a thesis on fingerprint identification. This work inspired his interest in forensic science and eventually landed him at the University of California, Berkeley, from where he obtained his Ph.D. in physiology in 1920[5] He joined the Berkeley police force in 1920. Upon learning the deception test based on blood pressure developed by William Moulton Marston, he was immediately instilled to include pulse, respiration and skin conductivity to make a more comprehensive and reliable tool. He was also highly encouraged by his police chief August Vollmer.
The instrument with the combination of measuring these physiological indices ultimately became the polygraph, which Larson fully developed for use in 1921. In conjunction with his polygraph, he used a test/a scientific procedure originated by William Moulton Marston with modifications necessary for his own invention and applied it to the police procedure at the Berkeley Police Department.[6][7] His instrument differed from Marston’s in that it provided continuous readings, rather than discontinuous readings. The first practical use was in the summer of 1921. The San Francisco Call and Post arranged for Larson to use the apparatus to test William Hightower, accused of murdering a priest in San Francisco. The newspaper reported Larson’s findings the following morning: Hightower was pronounced guilty by impartial science. The graphic results of the interrogation were printed large across the page, with arrows marking each presumed lie. Vollmer exalted the machine to the press, which renamed it the 'lie detector.' However, Larson himself used to refer to his apparatus as a 'cardio-pneumo psychogram,' which basically consisted of a modification of an Erlanger Sphygmomanometer.[8]
Larson married Margaret Taylor, the freshman victim of the College Hall case and the first person he ever interrogated on the lie detector. Over the next fifteen years, he collected hundreds of files on successful criminal cases where his polygraph solved murders, robberies, thefts and sex crimes. His instrument was nicknamed 'Sphyggy' by the press who covered Larson’s crime solving escapades in the 1920s and 30's; 'Sphyggy' because they couldn’t pronounce 'Sphygmomanometer.' [9] The polygraph is considered officially one of the greatest inventions of all time. It is included in the Encyclopædia Britannica Almanac 2003's list of 325 greatest inventions,[10] and is still ranks at 10 in the Rankopedia’s Best Inventions of 1920’s.[11] This first polygraph instrument of Larson is now at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.. It first appeared in action in a moving picture in 1926 in the silent police serial ‘’Officer 444’’.