Bertillon system
American Heritage Dictionary:
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Bertillon system
n.
A system formerly used for identifying persons by means of a detailed record of body measurements, physical description, and photographs. The Bertillon system was superseded by the more accurate procedure of fingerprinting.
[After Alphonse BERTILLON.]
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Bertillon system
Oxford Companion to the Body:
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Bertillon system
The Bertillon System, invented by French criminologist Alphonse Bertillon in 1879, was a technique for describing individuals on the basis of a catalogue of physical measurements, including standing height, sitting height (length of trunk and head), distance between fingertips with arms outstretched, and size of head, right ear, left foot, digits, and forearm. In addition, distinctive personal features, such as eye colour, scars, and deformities, were noted. The system was used to identify criminals in the later years of the nineteenth century, but was soon displaced by the more reliable and easily-recorded fingerprints.
— Colin Blakemore
Columbia Encyclopedia:
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Bertillon system
Bertillon system (bərtĭl'yən), first scientific method of criminal identification, developed by the French criminologist Alphonse Bertillon (1853-1914). The system, based on the classification of skeletal and other body measurements and characteristics, was officially adopted in France in 1888 and soon after in other countries. Fingerprinting, added later as a supplementary measure, has largely replaced the system (see fingerprint).
Bibliography
See biography of Alphonse Bertillon by H. Rhodes (1956, repr. 1969).
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categories related to 'Bertillon system'
- Police Procedures and Detection - Bertillon system: fingerprinting and identification system
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American Heritage Dictionary
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Oxford Companion to the Body
The Oxford Companion to the Body. Copyright © 2001, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
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Columbia Encyclopedia
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/.
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Mentioned in
Bertillon, Alphonse
(French anthropologist and criminologist)
fingerprint
(in law)
Year 1886
(in Science & Technology)
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