Fingerprinting (1892) | Vucetich Adds A Key Component To Forensics

"I've come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that is as unique as a fingerprint."  Oprah Winfrey, O Magazine ( September 2002)

 When two boys were brutally murdered near Buenos Aires in 1892, the police quickly named their mother's suitor, a man called Velasquez, as the only suspect. However, only a few days later police officer Juan Vucetich (1858-1925) proved beyond doubt that the murderer was, in fact, Francisca Rojas, the mother.

Working at the La Plata Police of Identification and Statics, Vucetich's task was to identify criminals using anthropometry. Less than a decade previously, Frenchman Alphonse Bertillon had established that the measurements of certain parts of the human body never alter, therefore giving each individual-in addition to their personality traits and peculiar marking such as tattos and scars - a distinctive anthropometric identity. His approach, named "Bertillonage", was widely adopted by police forces as a more reliable system of identification than mere eyewitness accounts and photos.

Five sets of fingerprints from Dr. Henry Faulds's Guide
 to Fingerprint identification, 1905

Being familiar with English scientist Sir Francis Galton's highly regarded research into fingerprinting ( a technique first used in China in ninth-century to authenticate records of debt ), Vucetich became convinced that this was an equally foolproof yet less cumbersome way of identifying criminals. After contracting Galton to enquire whether fingerprinting would have any usefulness in forenscis, he started to collect fingerprints from arrested men and classified them, calling his system "dactyloscopy".

Vucetich's easily executed system gradually soon replaced Bertillonage, while Dactiloscopia Comparada ( "Comparative Dactyloscopy" ), his acclaimed 1904 work, won him several awards.