346 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 195 4 



He reduced the inherent disadvantages of bone measurements by add- 

 ing to the purely anthropometric details a note of any distinguishing 

 marks, such as warts, scars, tattooing, etc., which are highly individual 

 when their exact situation, size, and direction are clearly indicated. 

 Bertillon's method was strikingly successful. For the first time, 

 thanks to accurate scientific methods, it was possible to refute the lies 

 of an old offender who denied his previous misdeeds and, irrespective 

 of what he said, to establish his true identity. Despite the difficulties 

 involved, and the complexity of the method, it spread all over the 

 globe in a few years, and by 1895 most police forces throughout the 

 world were using the Bertillon system. 



FINGERPRINTS 



But a formidable competitor was soon to oust Bertillon's system. 

 The work of Galton in England, following that of Sir William 

 Herschell, Faulds, and Vucetich, had established that fingerprints 

 could very well take the place of bone measurements. The system of 

 ridges in the skin, forming regular lines all over the inside of the 

 fingers, the palms of the hands, and the balls of the feet, proved to be 

 infinitely better, for the purpose in view, than any other morphological 

 feature. Experience over a period of more than 70 years has shown 

 that the system is absolutely stable, not only throughout life but before 

 birth, from the fourth month of the mother's pregnancy, and after 

 death, until the total destruction of the skin. All police forces 

 throughout the world have identified drowned bodies found several 

 days or sometimes weeks after death, by removing the saturated epi- 

 dermis and taking prints from the exposed ridges in the corium. The 

 probative value of fingerprints as evidence in the identification of 

 human beings is universally recognized. 



A few years ago, however, some anxiety arose. L. Ribeiro had 

 observed that in leprosy, in which trophic disturbances usually affect 

 the extremities, progressive changes took place in the ridge patterns, 

 sometimes almost totally obliterating them. The same series of ob- 

 servations established, however, that if the disease was treated and an 

 improvement set in as a consequence, if the trophic disorders were 

 brought to an end, the ridge patterns returned in exactly the same 

 form as they were before the illness. 



It still had to be proved that in no case were there two identical 

 fingerprints. Admittedly, when we examine fingerprints, we see that 

 there are only a few general patterns — four or five at the most. When, 

 however, we go into the details of the ridge system, we very soon find 

 that there are always differences in the morphology of the patterns, 

 by which one can be infallibly distinguished from another. 



In point of fact, despite the countless comparisons of fingerprints 

 which have been made by experts throughout the world for more than 



