Bertillon

Bertillon’s evidence, they said, was evidence of nothing at all.

Alphonse Bertillon was the black sheep of his largely intellectual family, many of whom were physicians and statisticians.

After Agent Burger informed Morrison of the purpose of these measurements, he also commissioned a mug shot, another of Bertillon’s innovations.

Bertillon believed that each man’s measurements were unique and thus could be used to penetrate the aliases that criminals deployed in moving from city to city.

In the 1890s, the French physician and statistician Jacques Bertillon further systematized death reporting by introducing the Bertillon Classification of Causes of Death, the first medical-coding system, which was adopted and modified in many countries.