The swirling ridges on human fingers, once considered insignificant, changed the course of forensic science in an unexpected place. You may think it would be somewhere in Europe, because the continent was home to a lot of scientific innovation in the 18th and 19th century, but the answer to this is extremely surprising. The birth place of fingerprinting is actually, hold your coffee, colonial India.
Fingerprinting as a forensic tool
In the late 19th century, British officer Sir William Herschel, working in Bengal, noticed that fingerprints remained consistent over time. He began using them on legal documents as a foolproof alternative to signatures, which could be forged.
Building on this insight, Sir Edward Henry, then Inspector General of Police in Bengal, devised a practical classification system for storing and retrieving fingerprint records.
A more reliable technique
This breakthrough made the method usable on a large scale, especially in criminal investigations. Soon, fingerprinting proved far more reliable than eyewitness accounts or written signatures.
The contribution of Dr. Faulds
According to an article published on the official website of the New York State, during the 1870s, Dr. Henry Faulds, the British Surgeon-Superintendent of Tsukiji Hospital in Tokyo, Japan, took up the study of "skin-furrows" after noticing finger marks on specimens of "prehistoric" pottery.
The article further adds that Dr. Faulds not only recognised the importance of fingerprints as a means of identification, but devised a method of classification as well.
The adoption in Argentina
Later this work led to its adoption as a forensic tool in Argentina by Juan Vucetich in 1892 to solve a murder case. It involved a crime where two children were murdered. The fingerprint identification helped the investigators solve the the crime, identifying the mother of the children, Francisca Rojas, as the killer.
Farncis Galton's contribution
The method's reliability, established further by Francis Galton, who noted fingerprint permanence and uniqueness, spread globally from India and Argentina, becoming a cornerstone of modern scientific investigation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
So, what started as a colonial experiment evolved into an institutional practice. India became the first country in the world to formalise fingerprinting as a forensic tool. Today, it is the universal gold standard of identification, from crime scenes to border controls, all tracing back to its pioneering roots in India.
Disclaimer: This article has been curated by Paperclip. All claims and opinions expressed belong to the original author. Hook does not verify or endorse the information presented and is not responsible for its accuracy.
