History of finger prints lecture 2

History of fingerprints

Fingerprints were used as an identification back from qin and han dynasties

Clay seals in the form of stamp was shown on bamboo to show authorship

This was the first known use of fingerprints to show identity

Century interest in friction ridge skin

Dr. Nehemiah Grew (1641 - 1712)

• Dr. Nehemiah Grew was the first to publish a description of friction ridge skin in his paper:

Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society of London (1684)

• "innumerable little Ridges, of equal bignefs and diftance, and everywhere running parallel one with another."

• Marcello Malpighi (1628 - 1694)

Published an article which discussed the structure, form and function of friction ridge skin titled:

Concerning the External Tactile

Organs (1687)

• A layer of skin is named after him

• 1788- Dr. J.C.A. Mayer - First European to claim that friction ridge skin is unique, in his book titled Anatomical Copper-plates with Appropriate Explanations.

Sir William Herschel in 1858 as the British Ambassador to the East India Company, stamped handprints on the back of contracts. One such instance of this was the Kondi Contract, which was the first official use of friction ridge skin by a European.

In 1877 he later used fingerprints as a means for identification when working with criminal courts prisons, and the registration of deeds as the Hooghly Magistrate.

Henry Faulds (1843 - 1930) became interested in friction ridges during his time as a medical missionary in Japan from 1873 - 1885.

Faulds, by way of collecting prints from monkeys and people, recognized that friction ridges were unique, classifiable and hinted at their permanence.

Faulds later conveyed these ideas to Charles Darwin and published an article in the journal Nature on his findings.

Sir Edward Richard Henry

Inspector General of Police for the Lower Provinces, Bengal India.

With collaboration of Indian officers Khan

Bahadur Azizul Haque and Rai Bahaden

Hem Chandra Bose, developed the Henry Classification System, 1894

1900 Henry Classification and

individualization of criminals by means of fingerprints became the standard in England and would eventually be adopted by most English-speaking countries

Alphonse Bertillon

(1853-1912)

Anthropometry: the study of body measurements for identification purposes.

Anthropometric measurements included the height, reach, trunk, length of head, width of head, length of right ear etc.

Bertillon was made Chief of the Department of Judicial Identity in 1888.

Bertillon would later add fingerprints to his records thus resulting in 11 body measurements, 2 photographs, and a set of all 10 fingerprints

• Sir Francis Galton

• His criticism of Anthropometry led to intense research in fingerprints as a means of identification.

• 1892 published Finger Prints

- Established that fingerprints are permanent and unique.

• Established early classification system that was incorporated into Scotland

Yard: Arch, Loop, Whorl

• First to describe minutia as Galton details.

Modern History of Fingerprints

• 1914 Edmond Locard published "The Legal Evidence by the Fingerprints"

• The International Association for Identification (IAI) was founded.

• 1939 First US disaster where fingerprint identification was used in the sinking of the USS Squalus.

• 1984 B. Lacroix, MJ Wolff-Quenot, and K. Haffen published "Early Human Hand Morphology". This paper discussed the three phases of the development of the hand and supports our current understanding of the morphology of friction ridges.