Most people know that
the Victorian era, which spanned from 1837 to
1901, was a great time for industrialization, science,
and economic prosperity. But few realized the
19th century also saw many important
discoveries and developments in the world of
criminal forensics that created a blueprint for
modern day investigations. So today, we're
going to take a look at some fascinating
Victorian attempts at forensic investigation. But before we get started, be
sure to subscribe to the Weird History channel, and let
us know in the comments below what other historic
scientific topics you would like to hear about. OK, someone call William
Petersen, because it's time for some Victorian CSI. In 1788, German anatomist
Johann Christoph Andreas Mayer became the first scientist
to suggest that fingerprints are unique to each individual. But the implications
of this insight must not have been
immediately apparent, because it wasn't until
the late 19th century that someone thought
to apply the principle to criminal investigations. That someone was a doctor
named Robert Blake Overton, who wrote to Scotland Yard in 1840,
suggesting the detectives there try and use fingerprint evidence
to catch the murder of Lord William Russell. The investigators were
willing to hear him out, but Overton was apparently a
little too ahead of his time. Fingerprinting evidence
wouldn't become a routine part of investigations
for another 50 years, give or take a few years. In 1880, physician Henry
Faulds published a paper in the scientific
journal Nature, again suggesting that
fingerprints left at a crime scene could be used for the
scientific identification of criminals. The matter still
wasn't seriously considered by police, though. In fact, it wasn't
until the 1890s, when Sir Francis Galton
developed a classification of fingerprint patterns
for police analysis, that fingerprinting evidence
would finally be put to use. Fingerprints were then
adopted as a means to identify criminals. In 1892, Francisca Rojas,
who killed her two children in Argentina, would
become the first person in the world ever caught due to
fingerprints being left behind at a crime scene. And in 1902, Harry Jackson, who
stole a set of billiard balls, was the first man in the
United Kingdom convicted on fingerprint evidence. [MUSIC PLAYING] Of course, London
was never completely devoid of violent criminals. But after Jack the
Ripper became one of the first high-profile serial
killers of the mass media age, people took notice of
such crimes in a big way. Prior to Jack, crime
in the Victorian era was perceived to be mostly
petty offenses or revenge crimes, things like robberies,
garroting, prostitution, and drunk and disorderly
charges were the norm, while sadistic serial
killers weren't even on the cultural radar. Criminals at the time were
often perceived merely as lazy, lower-class citizens
looking to make a quick buck. But once Jack the Ripper
began brutally carving up his victims, that
perception changed fast. Desperate to catch
The Ripper, the police found themselves willing
to try out some new ideas. And the first criminal profile
was created as an attempt to understand this
new type of monster. The first person to
profile a criminal was named Bond, Thomas Bond. We'd love to be able to say
he was on her Majesty's Secret Service. But he was actually a surgeon
with the Metropolitan Police. After examining
the evidence, Bond concluded that
Jack the Ripper was "a man subject to periodical
attacks of homicidal and erotic mania, quite likely to be a
quiet, inoffensive looking man, probably middle
aged, and neatly and respectably dressed." Bond also believed
Jack would probably be solitary and
eccentric in his habits. He also is most likely to be a
man without regular occupation, but with some small
income or pension. Since the Ripper
was never caught, we'll never know how
accurate Bond's profile was. But we do know, however, is that
criminal profiling would go on to become a standard
tool of law enforcement. Authorities have long
used microscopic analysis to study hairs and fibers
left at crime scenes. Rudolf Virchow conducted the
first forensic human hair comparison, way back
in 1861, finding that the hairs on the
case's defendant matched, by all indications, hair
found on the victim. However, despite the
similarity in appearance, the hairs could
never be considered unique to an individual. While forensic analysis
in the Victorian era followed that understanding,
microscopic examination of hairs and fibers
were still often used in criminal proceedings. Comparative evidence of hairs,
however, had limited use. While hair could be used
as circumstantial evidence, or to give further information
on the criminal's age or sex, it could never be considered
an absolute, definitive match. It could still be pretty
effective, though. For example, in the 1863
case of Reg v. Steed, the perpetrator stomped on the
victim's head, killing him. There were hairs
lodged on the bottom of the boot of the accused,
which matched hairs from the deceased. The victim was wearing
a redneck scarf, and investigators
also found red fibers on the bottom of the
perpetrator's boot. The hair and fiber comparison
helped secure a conviction. Early analysis of
bullets was rudimentary. Since guns were not
yet mass-produced, comparisons between bullets
and the guns that fired them could often be made by eye. For example, in
1835, Henry Goddard, a member of the London
Bow Street Runners, was able to identify a
gun used in a murder, based on a slight defect
in the discharged bullet. As the mass production of
firearms began to take off, however, identifying
bullets with a naked eye was no longer a feasible option. Investigators had to
begin using microscopes to see the bullets more clearly. They also developed techniques,
like rolling the bullets onto inked paper to search
for any identifying marks. The new methods meant
that ballistic analysis could be considered more
than just a shot in the dark. [MUSIC PLAYING] While medical experts often
testified in criminal cases prior to the 19th
century, their testimony was not accompanied
by an autopsy. In fact, it seems surprising
by today's standards, but those experts
typically didn't make any formal examination
of the body at all. Seeing the problem of inaccurate
medical testimony, surgeon and coroner Thomas
Wakley began to push for a required postmortem
in suspicious deaths. Eventually, the Medical
Witness Act of 1836 allowed coroners to
conduct autopsies when deemed necessary
and encouraged testimony from medical experts. While autopsies were
conducted more frequently, they still were not the norm,
due to cultural concerns about cutting open a dead body. By the time of England's
infamous Whitechapel murders, however, autopsies
had come a long way. Medical examiners used body
cooling and rigor mortis to approximate
the time of death. They also conducted much more
thorough and standardized autopsies of victims. However, despite the
advances, these procedures were still primitive
in a lot of ways. The postmortem
examinations were often held in sheds, makeshift
morgues, or even the house where the victim died. Doctors didn't give
hygiene and sterilization much consideration. They believed that
rubber gloves dulled the surgeon's sense of touch. Poisoning was a popular
method of murdering people during the 19th century. This isn't too hard to
believe, since the prevalence of chemist shops made
poison easily accessible. And it was well known
that autopsies of victims were often inconclusive. Many victims appear to have
died of natural causes. So if you wanted
to kill someone, poisoning was definitely
the way to go. Scientists did slowly begin
to chip away at the problem, though. For example, in
1836 chemist Marsh developed the Marsh test,
which allowed doctors to test human tissue for
the presence of arsenic. This development led to the
convictions of many murderers during the Victorian era,
including Sarah Dazley, nicknamed The Potton Poisoner. Authorities suspected
Dazley of murdering her first husband and son. She was eventually convicted of
murdering her second husband, after his body was
exhumed for a Marsh test. [MUSIC PLAYING] It wasn't until the early
1900s that scientists developed a universal test
for the presence of blood. But Victorian investigators
examined blood long before that. In fact, Professor
Mathieu Orfila began examining bodily fluids
microscopically and developing tests to distinguish these
substances in the early 1800s. In 1873, English medical writer
and toxicologist Alfred Swaine Taylor described three methods
for examining bloodstains. Taylor developed processes
for chemical, microscopic, and optical investigation. He provided instructions on how
these methods could positively identify human blood
and distinguish it from similar substances,
such as dyes and paints. Furthermore, he discussed using
the analysis of blood splatter to indicate the time
and manner of death. In the infamous case
of The Road Murder, 16-year-old Constance
Kent confessed to killing her four-year-old
brother by slashing his throat with a razor blade. Swaine and the medical
examiner suggested that because there was little
blood at the crime scene, despite the victim's
throat being cut, the child died from
previous injuries, such as strangulation, before
the perpetrator slashed his throat. They concluded that Kent's
confession was likely false, and she was probably covering
for another family member. We'd like to say this
story ended happily ever after for
Constance, but sadly, she was convicted, nonetheless. If you watched Weird
History's video about how people in
the Victorian era spent their free
time, then you already know that people from
that time were well versed in taking
photos of the deceased. That being said,
most of these morning photographs, as they
were known, were taken for personal reasons. However, while crime
scene photography was conceptualized
during the late 1800s, it was not often employed. Seems obvious to us now, but
taking crime scene photos didn't even start becoming
a standard practice until Alfred Swaine
Taylor wrote his 1865 book The Principles and Practice
of Medical Jurisprudence. In that book, Taylor
opined, "It would be well if, before a body is
moved, a photograph could be taken of the attitude
and position of surrounding objects in relation to it." In some cases, investigators
brought photographers in to document a specific
blood splatter pattern or the state of the victim. But in general, crime
scene photography still wasn't regularly utilized at
the time Jack the Ripper struck in the 1880s. In fact, there are only
photos of one Ripper victim, Mary Kelly. The bodies and scenes were
generally cleared as quickly as possible to prevent
public hysteria. It wasn't until the
turn of the century that investigators started
to agree upon the importance of crime scene photography. [MUSIC PLAYING] While many of the
forensic innovations of the Victorian era turned
out to be breakthroughs that forever changed how
investigations are conducted, some of them didn't
quite pan out. For example, when
investigators photographed Jack the Ripper's
victim Mary Kelly, the main focus was her eyes. Why the eyes? Well, According to
Inspector Walter Dew, photographers captured
Kelly's eyes in the hopes that perhaps a lasting
image of the killer was preserved on her retinas. Needless to say, eyes
don't work like that, and the photos didn't
help identify the killer. Luckily, proponents of
crime scene photography pressed on about its usefulness. And in 1888, the Metropolitan
and London police began photographing
victims faces as a means of
identifying the deceased, rather than their eyes to
try and identify the killers. The Whitechapel murders
marked another first, in that journalist published
a sketch of the man suspected to be Jack the Ripper. Witnesses had seen the assailant
in the vicinity of the crime scenes, so actual descriptions
did influence the sketch. However, the ultimate
value of the final drawing was highly questionable,
since the artist also added his own thoughts of how
an evil murderer like Jack the Ripper might look. Despite these early exercises
in artistic license, police sketches based on
eyewitness descriptions of suspects became a common
tool of investigations and are still
frequently employed by the crime solvers of today. So what do you think? What's the coolest
Victorian CSI fact? Let us know in the
comments below. And while you're at it, check
out some of these other videos from our Weird History.
