Fingerprints: Murder and the Race to Uncover the Science of Identity

by Colin Beavan (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2003

  $3.26

  An exploration into the history of science and crime. In the tradition of Fermat's Last Theorem , this is the story of the race to discover the secrets trapped in the whorls and arches found on the palm of one's hand. In 1905 an elderly couple were found murdered in their shop in Deptford, London. The only evidence at the scene of the crime was a sweaty fingerprint on a cashbox. Was it possible that a single fingerprint could be enough to lead to a conviction? Could the pattern of these tracks hold the secrets of the science of identification? Through the story of three brilliant men: William Herschel, a colonial administrator in Indian, Henry Faulds, a missionary in Japan and Charles Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton, the story of the history of fingerprinting is revealed - a story of intellectual skulduggery and scientific brilliance.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2002

  $3.26

  This title concerns the true story of the development of the science of identity and the history of fingerprint detection. In 1905 an elderly couple were found murdered in their shop in Deptford, London. The only evidence at the scene of the crime was a sweaty fingerprint on a cashbox. Was it possible that a single fingerprint could be enough to lead to a conviction? Could the pattern of these tracks hold the secrets of the science of identification? Fifty years earlier, William Herschel, the colonial administrator in India, had begun to experiment with fingerprints as an irrefutable method of establishing identity. In the 1880s, Henry Faulds, a missionary in Japan, began to study the formation of the whorls, arches and loops on each finger and was the first to ask whether these traces could be the unique key to identifying every individual. Whilst police and scientists alike were ignoring Faulds's discovery, other thinkers were working on complex, alternative methods of identification. In France, anthropometry, a system of measuring parts of the body was the first scientific method used to catch criminals. But it was in England, through the studies of Francis Galton, Charles Darwin's cousin, that the study of fingerprints became the recognized science of dactylography. Beaven recreates the 19th-century race to find a scientific method of identification. Fingerprints is a story with a cast of individuals whose scientific breakthroughs helped solve one of the most brutal murders in English history and shape our understanding of identity forever.