Alphonse Bertillon
Born	April 23, 1853 Paris, France
Died	February 13, 1914 Münsterlingen, Switzerland
Occupation	law enforcement officer and biometrics researcher
Parents	Louis Bertillon (father)

Alphonse Bertillon (April 23, 1853—February 13, 1914) was a French law enforcement officer and biometrics researcher, who created anthropometry, an identification system based on physical measurements. Anthropometry was the first scientific system police used to identify criminals. Until this time, criminals could only be identified based on eyewitness accounts, which are known to be unreliable. The method was eventually supplanted by fingerprinting.^[1] Image File history File links Alphonse_Bertillon. ... April 23 is the 113th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (114th in leap years). ... 1853 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... Image File history File links Flag_of_France. ... City flag City coat of arms Motto: Fluctuat nec mergitur (Latin: Tossed by the waves, she does not sink) Paris Eiffel tower as seen from the esplanade du Trocadéro. ... February 13 is the 44th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1914 (MCMXIV) was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Switzerland. ... Münsterlingen is a municipality in the district of Kreuzlingen, in the canton of Thurgau, Switzerland. ... Louis Adolphe Bertillon (1812 - 1883) was a French statistician and appointed professor of demography at the school of anthropology in Paris Categories: People stubs | 1812 births | 1883 deaths | French professors ... April 23 is the 113th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (114th in leap years). ... 1853 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... February 13 is the 44th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1914 (MCMXIV) was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... For the band, see The Police. ... At Walt Disney World, biometric measurements are taken from the fingers of guests to ensure that the persons ticket is used by the same person from day to day. ... Illustration from The Speaking Portrait (Pearsons Magazine, Vol XI, January to June 1901) demonstrating the principles of Bertillons anthropometry. ... This article is about human fingerprints. ...

Alphonse Bertillon was born April 23, 1853 in Paris. He was a son of statistician Louis Bertillon and younger brother of the statistician and demographer Jacques Bertillon. April 23 is the 113th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (114th in leap years). ... 1853 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... City flag City coat of arms Motto: Fluctuat nec mergitur (Latin: Tossed by the waves, she does not sink) Paris Eiffel tower as seen from the esplanade du Trocadéro. ... Louis Adolphe Bertillon (1812 - 1883) was a French statistician and appointed professor of demography at the school of anthropology in Paris Categories: People stubs | 1812 births | 1883 deaths | French professors ... Jacques Bertillon (1851-1922) was a French statistician and demographer. ...

Bertillon began as a records clerk in a police department. Paradoxically he got this job as a protegé of his prominent father. Being an orderly man, he was dissatisfied with the ad hoc methods used to identify captured criminals who had been arrested before. This motivated his invention of anthropometrics. Bertillon's road to fame was a protracted and hard one as he was forced to do his measurements in his spare-time. He used the famous La Santé prison in Paris for his activities facing jeers from the prison inmates as well as police officers. City flag City coat of arms Motto: Fluctuat nec mergitur (Latin: Tossed by the waves, she does not sink) Paris Eiffel tower as seen from the esplanade du Trocadéro. ...

Frontispiece from Bertillon'sIdentification anthropométrique (1893), demonstrating the measurements one takes for his anthropometric identification system.

In 1882 Bertillon presented a criminal identification system known as anthropometry but later also known as Bertillonage in honor of its creator. In this system the person was identified by body measurement of the head and body, individual markings - tattoos, scars - and personality characteristics. The measurements were made into a formula that would apply only on one person and would not change. He used it in 1884 to identify 241 multiple offenders, and the system was quickly adopted widely by American and British police forces. Part of its benefit was that by arranging the records carefully, it would be very easy to sift through a large number of records quickly given a few measurements from the person to be identified. While it might not always give an exact match, it would allow one to narrow the pool of possible people and then to compare the person with a photograph. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (918x1457, 137 KB) Summary Frontisepiece from Alphonse Bertillons (d. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (918x1457, 137 KB) Summary Frontisepiece from Alphonse Bertillons (d. ... In architecture, a frontispiece constitutes the elements that frame and decorate the main, or front, door to a building; especially when the main entrance is the chief face of the building, rather than being kept behind columns or a portico. ... A tattoo is a mark made by inserting pigment into the skin; in technical terms, tattooing is dermal pigmentation. ... 1884 (MDCCCLXXXIV) is a leap year starting on Tuesday (click on link to calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Thursday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ...

The system was eventually found to be flawed AT THAT TIME!* Because often two different officers made their measurements in slightly different ways and would not obtain the same numbers. Measurements could also change as the criminal aged. It also could identify two individuals as the same person, unlike fingerprinting. In 1903, the system was discredited when a man named Will West arrested in Kansas was found to be a previously arrested man with anthropometrics, but fingerprinting contradicted this. This article is about human fingerprints. ... 1900 (MCMIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Friday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar. ...

The system was widely used by French police and in other European countries. In France it was popular enough that it was widely used even after the advent of fingerprinting. One audacious member of the Bonnot gang sent police his fingerprints because he knew they did not have them, just his physical measurements. The Bonnot Gang (la bande à Bonnot) was a French criminal anarchist group that operated in France and Belgium from 1911 to 1912. ...

Bertillon was a witness for the prosecution in the Dreyfus Affair in 1899. He testified as a handwriting expert, although he had had no experience in that area and claimed that Alfred Dreyfus had written the incriminating documents. The Dreyfus affair was a political scandal which divided France during the 1890s and early 1900s. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

Bertillon also standardized the criminal mug shot and the evidence picture. He developed "metric photography" that he intended to use to reconstruct the dimension of a particular space and the placement of objects in it. Crime scene pictures were taken before the scene was disturbed in any way. He used mats printed with metric frames that were mounted along the side of the photographs. Photographs pictured front and side views of a particular object. Al Capone. ... A crime scene is a location where an illegal act took place such as molestation, rape or illegal turnip smoking, and comprises the area from which most of the physical evidence is retrieved by [[forensics|forensic scientists] for example the reknowned criminal investigator and skilled forensic scientist, who is unfortunately...

Bertillon also created many other forensics techniques, including handwriting analysis, the use of galvanoplastic compounds to preserve footprints, ballistics, and the dynamometer, used to determine the degree of force used in breaking and entering. Forensic science (often shortened to forensics) is the application of a broad spectrum of sciences to answer questions of interest to the legal system. ... Graphology is the study of handwriting and its connection to behavior, personal information and other human traits. ... A footprint is an impression left by a foot or shoe, for example an indentation in soft ground or snow, or a mark left by mud etc from the sole of the foot. ... Ballistics (gr. ... A dynamometer, or dyno for short, is a machine used to measure torque and rotational speed (rpm) from which power produced by an engine, motor or other rotating prime mover can be calculated. ... Breaking and entering is defined as the crime of illegally entering a residence or other enclosed property using any amount of force (even pushing open an unlocked door). ...

Alphonse Bertillon died February 13, 1914 in Münsterlingen, Switzerland. February 13 is the 44th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1914 (MCMXIV) was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... Münsterlingen is a municipality in the district of Kreuzlingen, in the canton of Thurgau, Switzerland. ...

Bertillon is referenced in the Sherlock Holmes storyThe Hound of the Baskervilles in which one of Holmes's clients refers to Holmes as the "second highest expert in Europe" after Bertillon. Also, in The Naval Treaty, speaking of the Bertillon system of measurements Holmes himself "...expressed his enthusiastic admiration of the French savant". A portrait of Sherlock Holmes from the Strand Magazine, 1891 Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who first appeared in publication in 1887. ... The Hound of the Baskervilles is a crime novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, originally serialised in the Strand Magazine in 1901 and 1902, which is set largely on Dartmoor 1889. ...

Bertillon is also referenced in the Caleb Carr novel The Alienist. The Isaacson brothers, who are detectives, mention that they are trained in Bertillon system. Caleb Carr (born August 2, 1955) is an American novelist and noted military historian. ... The Alienist is a novel from 1994 (ISBN 0-553-57299-7), written by Caleb Carr. ...

Illustration from "The Speaking Portrait" (Pearson's Magazine, Vol XI, January to June 1901) demonstrating the principles of Bertillon's anthropometry.

Download high resolution version (1584x626, 225 KB)Illustration from The Speaking Portrait, an article from Pearsons Magazine, 1901, illustrating the principles of Alphonse Bertillons anthropometry. ... Download high resolution version (1584x626, 225 KB)Illustration from The Speaking Portrait, an article from Pearsons Magazine, 1901, illustrating the principles of Alphonse Bertillons anthropometry. ...

Notes

• It should be noted , that: As of this writting 4/8/2007..A lot of Bertillion Hypothosis'were proved to be correct in particular of/in our present state of the art of VIDEO & PHOTOGRAPHIC FACIAL REGOGNITION, WHICH VERY FOUNDATION IS BASED ON "BERTILLON" IDEOLOGY!! That's to say that it has been proved that the one distinctive , unmitigating feature is the unique measurement between an individuals:EYES,NOSE/BROWLINE.

It should also be noted that my attention to this subject was based by a quip made by a highly skilled 35 yearforensic Detective to me about antiqueted information, posted by me "Lawman Confidential" of 411forensics.com On the Detective Forum website!!

1. ^ As reported in, "A Fingerprint Fable: The Will and William West Case". http://www.scafo.org/library/110105.html

External links

• Central Missouri State University: Criminal Justice: Alphonse Bertillon
• Example of Bertillon Measurements in practice
• "Instructions signalétiques" at http://www.bookmine.org
• Ancestral Criminal Records - includes Bertillon cards.