Johann Ludwig Casper (11 March 1796 – 24 February 1864) was a German forensic scientist, criminologist, pathologist, pediatrician, pharmacologist, professor and author.

Casper traveled to familiarize himself with medical science in France and England, and then returned to his native city in 1822.

In 1839, he became a professor at the Medicina Forensis and Publica[1] and then the director of an educational institution for forensic medicine in 1841.

[3] In 1858, he proposed a consistent ratio of the time taken for a body to putrefy in different substances – 1:2:8 in air, water and earth.

Before his sudden death in 1864, Casper published colored lithographs of gunshot wounds in cadavers in his textbook, Atlas zum Handbuch der gerichtlichen Medicin.