Forensic Science History Paper

Previous Englishman Francis Henry Galton who

undertook the first definitive study of

fingerprints and developed a methodology of

classifying them for filing. In 1892, Galton

published a book titled Finger Prints, which

contained the first statistical proof supporting

the uniqueness of fingerprints and the

effectiveness of his method. His book went on

to describe the basic principles that would

form our present system of identification by

fingerprints.

The first treatise describing the application of

scientific disciplines to the field of criminal

investigation was written by Hans Gross in

1893. Gross, a public prosecutor and judge in

Graz, Austria, spent many years studying and

developing principles of criminal

investigation. In his classic book Handbuch

für Untersuchungsrichter als System der

Kriminalistik (later published in English

under the title Criminal Investigation), he

detailed the assistance that investigators could

expect from the fields of microscopy,

chemistry, physics, mineralogy, zoology,

botany, anthropometry, and fingerprinting. He

later introduced the forensic journal Archiv

für Kriminal Anthropologie und Kriminalistik,

which still reports improved methods of

scientific crime detection.

1/17/19, 2(53 PM Page 1 of 1