science · 29 December 1864 · 160 years ago
birth
Born 29 Dec 1864; died 13 Jun 1948 at age 83.
Henry Pelouze deForest was an American gynaecologist and surgeon who in 1902 established the first fingerprint file in the U.S., and invented the dactyloscope, a measuring device to analyze finger print patterns. Shortly after becoming its chief medical examiner, he was requested by the New York Civil Service Commission, to devise a system of personal identification to combat fraud at civil service examinations for police and fire department jobs. Hired stand-ins had been taking the test on behalf of candidates. A scandal resulted when a particular stand-in revealed he had taken the test for a dozen different candidates. DeForest first thought of utilizing the Bertillon anthropometric method, but instead adopted the simpler fingerprinting procedure used by Scotland Yard. This fingerprint file thus began for bureaucratic rather than criminal purposes. The first record was created on 19 Dec 1902.
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