Alphonse Bertillon (1853–1914), the son of medical professor Louis Bertillon, was a French criminologist and anthropologist who created the first system of physical measurements, photography, and record-keeping that police could use to identify recidivist criminals. Before Bertillon, suspects could only be identified through eyewitness accounts and unorganized files of photographs.

Bertillon began his career as a records clerk in the Parisian police department. His obsessive love of order led him to reject the unsystematic methods used to identify suspects and motivated him to develop his own method, which combined systematic measurement and photography. In 1883, the Parisian police adopted his anthropometric system, called "signaletics" or "bertillonage." Bertillon identified individuals by measurements of the head and body, shape formations of the ear, eyebrow, mouth, eye, etc., individual markings such as tattoos and scars, and personality characteristics. The measurements were made into a formula that referred to a single unique individual, and recorded onto cards which also bore a photographic frontal and profile portrait of the suspect (the "mug shot"). The cards were then systematically filed and cross-indexed, so they could be easily retrieved. In 1884, Bertillon used his method to identify 241 multiple offenders, and after this demonstration, bertillonage was adopted by police forces in Great Britain, Europe, and the Americas.

But bertillonage was difficult to implement. The measuring tools needed frequent recalibration and maintenance; the process was labor intensive, requiring rigorously trained, highly motivated and competent technicians, and was expensive. When individuals were measured several times, even well-trained officers made their measurements in different ways and sometimes failed to obtain the exact same numbers. Measurements could also change as the criminal aged. Eventually, police departments began to abandon bertillonage in favor of fingerprint identification, although some elements, such as the inventorying of basic information and features, scars, tattoos, and the mug shot, were retained.

One of Bertillon's most important contributions to forensics was the systematic use of photography to document crime scenes and evidence. He devised a method of photographing crime scenes with a camera mounted on a high tripod, to document and survey the scene before it was disturbed by investigators. He also developed "metric photography," which used measured grids to document the dimensions of a particular space and the objects in it.

By the mid-1890s, Bertillon had achieved international celebrity, through articles in popular publications, exhibition displays, and international expositions. He fought vociferously against those who advocated fingerprint identification—but eventually incorporated fingerprinting into his system, albeit grudgingly. He also worked to further the development of other forensic scientific techniques, such as handwriting analysis, galvanoplastic compounds to preserve footprints and other impressions, ballistics, and a dynamometer which measured the degree of force used in breaking and entering.

Courtesy of the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Juan Vucetich (1858–1925), an Argentinian police official, devised the first workable system of fingerprint identification, and pioneered the first use of fingerprint evidence in a murder investigation. As a young man, Vucetich emigrated from Croatia to Argentina, where he took a job in the La Plata Police Office of Identification and Statistics. After reading an article in a French journal on Francis Galton's experiments with fingerprints as a means of identification, Vucetich began collecting fingerprints, taken from arrested men, while also making Bertillon-style anthropometric measurements. He soon devised a useable system to group and classify fingerprints, which he called dactyloscopy.

Vucetich demonstrated the utility of fingerprint evidence in an 1892 case, which resulted in the identification and conviction of a suspect for first-degree murder. Shortly after that, he broke entirely with Bertillon, arguing that a full ten-finger set of fingerprints was sufficient for identification, and that complicated anthropometric measurements were unnecessary.

In 1900, the Argentine Republic began issuing a kind of internal passport which included fingerprints—a practice that was eventually adopted by many other countries. The 1904 publication of Dactiloscopía Comparada, Vucetich's definitive work on fingerprint identification, and his travels to other countries, helped to spread his system throughout the world, especially in Spanish-speaking countries.

Courtesy Dirección Museo Policial–Ministerio de Seguridad de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina

Fingerprinting was used not only to identify criminal suspects and convicts. It was also employed as a method of government control. After Vucetich perfected his system, Argentinean citizens were issued an identification book with a fingerprint stamp that functioned as an internal passport.

Courtesy Dirección Museo Policial–Ministerio de Seguridad de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina

Courtesy Dirección Museo Policial–Ministerio de Seguridad de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina

Vucetich wrote out his original instructions for taking fingerprints, including explanatory diagrams.

Courtesy Dirección Museo Policial–Ministerio de Seguridad de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina

Vucetich is sitting behind Dr. Luis Reyna Almandos who is standing and reading. Dr. Almandos was Vucetich's most important disciple but interestingly enough 

Courtesy Dirección Museo Policial–Ministerio de Seguridad de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina

This letter was signed by Arturo Seguí, Minister of Government of the Buenos Aires Province. It says: "Ministry of Government of the Buenos Aires Province. La Plata 26 September 1889. To Mr. Juan Vucetich, I am writing to let you know that the Executive Power has issued an official resolution dated today appointing you as Head of the Statistics Section at the Buenos Aires Province Police Department. Sincerely, A. Seguí"

Courtesy Dirección Museo Policial–Ministerio de Seguridad de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina

Courtesy Dirección Museo Policial–Ministerio de Seguridad de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina

Courtesy Dirección Museo Policial–Ministerio de Seguridad de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina

The original Dactilonomo invented by Vucetich for demonstrating diverse fingerprint combinations in his classification method.

Courtesy Dirección Museo Policial–Ministerio de Seguridad de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina

Courtesy Dirección Museo Policial–Ministerio de Seguridad de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina

In 1892, two boys were brutally murdered in the village of Necochea, near Buenos Aires, Argentina. Initially, suspicion fell on a man named Velasquez, a suitor of the children's mother, Francisca Rojas. But even after torture, the police could not get him to confess.

Investigators found a bloody fingerprint at the crime scene and contacted Juan Vucetich, who was developing a system of fingerprint identification for police use. Vucetich compared the fingerprints of Rojas and Velasquez with the bloody fingerprint. Francisca Rojas had denied touching the bloody bodies, but the fingerprint matched one of hers.

Confronted with the evidence, she confessed—the first successful use of fingerprint identification in a murder investigation. After the Rojas case, Vucetich improved his fingerprint system, which he called "comparative dactyloscopy." Adopted by the province of Buenos Aires in 1903, it spread rapidly throughout the Spanish-speaking world.

On September 14, 1935, Buck Ruxton, an Indian-born physician who lived in Lancashire, near the English-Scottish border, murdered his wife Isabella and her maid Mary Rogerson, and then mutilated their bodies and scattered the parts, in an effort to make them unidentifiable.

After a passerby discovered some remains under a bridge in Scotland, a team of forensic experts was assembled. Using an array of scientific methods, the experts identified the victims and unmasked the perpetrator. The painstaking reconstruction of the bodies of Isabella Ruxton and Mary Rogerson by forensic pathologist John Glaister, Jr. and anatomist James Couper Brash—and pioneering use of photographic superimpositions—was the key evidence that led to Dr. Ruxton's conviction and execution. The success of the methods used in the Ruxton case, which was widely reported in the press, led to increased public and professional trust in the capabilities of forensic science. Dr. Ruxton's trial, which took place in March 1936, lasted 11 days. He was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged to death. Before his execution, he admitted his guilt.

Courtesy University of Glasgow

Outlines of Skull No. 1 superimposed on outlines of Mrs. Ruxton's portrait. The facial outlines do not correspond. Outlines of Skull No. 2 superimposed on outlines of Mrs. Ruxton's portrait. The facial outlines seem to correspond.

Courtesy University of Glasgow

Finding the Scale: Photographic reconstruction was an important tool in the investigation. The skulls of the two victims were compared with multiple existing portraits to confirm the identifications. To find the precise scale of this portrait, a photographer staged a measured shot of the dress and tiara and superimposed them on the portrait.

Courtesy University of Glasgow

Mrs. Isabella Ruxton Mrs. Ruxton was last seen on September 14, 1935. Dr. Ruxton claimed that she had gone with Mary Rogerson to Edinburgh, but her clothing was still in the house and the car that she used was parked outside.

Courtesy University of Glasgow

Neither Mrs. Ruxton nor Mary Rogerson had been seen after September 14, 1935. Dr. Buck Ruxton, Isabella Ruxton's husband and Mary Rogerson's employer, became the prime suspect. Prior to her disappearance, Dr. Ruxton had openly accused his wife of unfaithfulness and threatened her with violence. When first interviewed by the police, he had a gash on his hand, was agitated, and made inconsistent statements about where his wife and nursemaid had gone.

Courtesy University of Glasgow

A nursemaid for the Ruxton children, Mary Rogerson may have been killed because she witnessed Mrs. Ruxton's murder. Dr. Ruxton suggested to the police that the two had left together because Mary Rogerson was pregnant and Mrs. Ruxton was helping her obtain an abortion, which was then illegal.

Courtesy University of Glasgow

The tips of the fingers of the victims were cut off to prevent fingerprint identification. The skill with which the fingers were mutilated led police to hypothesize that the murderer had anatomical training and knew how to use a scalpel.

Courtesy University of Glasgow

The Anatomical Report submitted in the case of Rex v. Ruxton by James Cooper Brash of the University of Edinburgh. Investigators had to find, and then sort and reassemble, the remains of the victims; investigate and reconstruct the crime; and marshal the circumstantial and forensic evidence that could be introduced as evidence at a trial.

Courtesy University of Glasgow

Reconstructing the Bodies: Because the body parts of the two victims were jumbled and had to be reassembled, newspapers called the case the "Jigsaw Murders."

University of Glasgow

Portions of the victims' bodies were bundled together in bags under the bridge at Moffat, England, near the Scottish border. Other parts, including their heads, were strewn about the banks of the creek and adjacent areas. Their task was made easier by the fact that, while Dr. Ruxton had worked hard to render the bodies unidentifiable, he had not been thorough and made many mistakes.

Courtesy University of Glasgow

John Glaister, Jr. (1892–1971) was the second son of John Glaister Senior, an eminent Scottish professor of forensic medicine, and Mary Scott Clarke. In 1916, upon receiving his bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery degrees from the University of Glasgow, he joined the British army, serving in the Royal Army Medical Corps in Palestine. He returned to Glasgow in 1919 to enter private practice and to join the Department of Forensic Medicine at the University of Glasgow as an assistant, working under his father. In 1925 he obtained his doctorate in medicine and in 1927 the degree of D.Sc. (doctor of science). In the same year, he became a barrister, lectured on Forensic Medicine to the Glasgow Police Force, and acted as medico-legal examiner and adviser to the Corporation of Glasgow. In 1928, Glaister replaced Sydney Smith as the chair of forensic medicine in Cairo at the University of Egypt and became medico-legal advisor to the Egyptian government. He returned to Glasgow in 1931 to succeed his father in the Regius Chair of Medical Jurisprudence at the university and held that post until 1962.

His most important publication, the textbook Medical Jurisprudence and Toxicology, was initiated by his father, but Glaister, Jr. substantially revised it with the help of Dr. Edgar Rentoul; it went on to be published in many subsequent editions. His other publications include: Legal Medicine (1922) Medico-Legal Aspects of the Ruxton Case (1936), written with James Couper Brash, Professor of Anatomy, University of Edinburgh; Recent Advances in Forensic Medicine (1939); A Study of Hairs and Wools Belonging to the Mammalian Group of Animals, Including a Special Study of Human Hair (1937); The Power of Poison (1954); and his autobiography, Final Diagnosis (1964).

As Medico-Legal Examiner to the Crown, Glaister worked mainly in western Scotland, but also did some work in England, most famously on the Buck Ruxton case. Over the course of his career, he was often consulted as a medical examiner, forensic pathologist, serologist, and expert on hairs and fibers.

"The avenue of medico-legal investigation demands an exhaustive study of animal and human hairs…. For the purpose of identification, it is essential that the examiner should have at hand a comprehensive collection of known hairs for comparison."

—John Glaister, Jr., Scottish professor of forensic medicine, 1931

Frances Glessner Lee (1878–1962), a New England socialite and heiress, dedicated her life to the advancement of forensic medicine and scientific crime detection. The seeds of her interest began when her brother's college classmate, George Burgess Magrath (1870–1938), vacationed with the Glessner family at their summer home in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Magrath, then a medical student, went on to teach legal medicine at Harvard and to become the chief medical examiner of Suffolk County (Boston). In 1931 Mrs. Lee helped to establish the Department of Legal Medicine at Harvard, the only such program then in existence in North America. From that time on, she became a tireless advocate for forensic science. In 1934 she presented the department with a collection of books and manuscripts, which became the Magrath Library of Legal Medicine, and in 1936 endowed the department with a gift of $250,000 (adjusted for inflation, the equivalent of $3,367,000 in 2005 dollars).

In 1943, Mrs. Lee was appointed captain in the New Hampshire State Police, the first woman in the United States to hold such a position. Around the same time, she began work on the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death—a series of eighteen miniature crime-scene dioramas for student analysis. The Nutshells allowed Mrs. Lee to combine her lifelong love of dolls, dollhouses, and models with her passion for forensic medicine. She originally presented them to the Harvard Department of Legal Medicine; later they came into the possession of the Maryland Chief Medical Examiner's Office. Erle Stanley Gardner, the writer best known for creating the Perry Mason mysteries, and Mrs. Lee's close friend, wrote that "A person studying these models can learn more about circumstantial evidence in an hour than he could learn in months of abstract study."

Courtesy Glessner House Museum, Chicago, Illinois

Courtesy Corinne May Botz, Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Baltimore, Maryland

Courtesy Corinne May Botz, Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Baltimore, Maryland

Courtesy Corinne May Botz, Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Baltimore, Maryland

Courtesy Corinne May Botz, Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Baltimore, Maryland

Courtesy Corinne May Botz, Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Baltimore, Maryland

Courtesy Corinne May Botz, Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Baltimore, Maryland

Courtesy Corinne May Botz, Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Baltimore, Maryland

Courtesy Corinne May Botz, Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Baltimore, Maryland

Courtesy Corinne May Botz, Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Baltimore, Maryland

Courtesy Corinne May Botz, Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Baltimore, Maryland