JUDICIAL ANTHROPOMETRY.
Of late years the subject of anthropometric identification has taken such a place before justice that it cannot be ignored by the medical legist. The facts of scientific anthropology have here been applied in such a way as to establish with great certainty both the present and future identity of individuals who attempt dissimulation of their name and antecedents. The method used principally in the identification of criminals and deserters from the army has been adopted in the public service[599] and by most municipalities, with the exception of New York, where the subsequent identification of persons connected with municipal affairs has been and may be a source of no little embarrassment.
The system is based on three recognitory elements: photography, anthropometric measurements, and personal markings, from which a descriptive list is made that gives absolute certainty as to individual identity.
Owing to the illusory nature of photography and the difficulty in finding the portrait of any given individual in the large and constantly increasing collection of a “rogues’ gallery,” the matter has been simplified and facilitated by grouping the photographic collection according to the six anthropological coefficients of sex, stature, age, and color of the eyes. Each of these primordial groups is again subdivided in such a way as to reduce the last group to a small number, when the portrait is easily found and verified on comparing the measurements of the head, of the extended arms, the length of the left foot, and that of the left middle finger.
The photographic proof for each individual consists of two portraits side by side, one of which is taken full face, the other in profile of the right side. On the back of the photographic card is recorded with rigorous precision all personal markings or peculiarities.
The measurements, which can be made by any person of average intelligence in three or four minutes, are extremely simple. The right ear is always measured, for the reason that this organ is always reproduced in the traditional photograph which represents the right face. Other special measurements are taken on the left side. The height sitting, dimensions and character of the nose, color of eyes, etc., are also noted.
It is contended that by these measurements alone the identity of an individual whose face is not even known may be established in another country by telegraph. The application of the system has proved of great service in the apprehension of deserters from the United States army (when the authorities have been able to find the card), while it is claimed to have caused the disappearance of numerous dissimulators of identity in the prisons of Paris. The police authorities of that city report that out of more than five hundred annual recognitions by the foregoing means, not one mistake has yet occurred.[600]
To avoid a possible source of error mensuration of the organs and the ascertainment of their form may be resorted to in the case of a cadaver that is much decayed, or in one that has been purposely mutilated or burned by the assassin in order to prevent recognition. A sufficient number of cases may be cited in which the measurement of a limb or a bone of a deceased person known to have been lame or deformed during life has resulted in the establishment of identity or the reverse.
A mistake may be prevented in the case of supposed mutilation of a drowned body, which may have been caused by the screw of a passing steamer. Other errors may result from carelessness, incorrect observation of signs, and neglect to follow the ordinary precautions that should obtain in all researches on identity of the dead body.
Certain circumstances indicative of the mental state of the culprit may throw light on the identity. A person of unsound mind would certainly be suggested as the perpetrator of such a deed as that of the woman already mentioned, who after killing and cutting up her infant, cooked portions of the remains with cabbage and served them at a meal of which she herself partook. Equally conclusive should be the inference in the case cited by Maudsley of a person who, for no ascertainable motive, kills a little girl, mutilates her remains, and carefully records the fact in his note-book, with the remark that the body was hot and good.
The handwriting left by the assassin might also furnish a strong presumption as to the existence of a mental lesion, since the writing of the insane is often characteristic, especially in the initial stage of dementia. I recall the case of a former patient, an aphasic, imprisoned for having stabbed a man in the abdomen and for having wounded his wife in such a way that her arm had to be amputated. Having lost the power to express himself phonetically, this man used a book and pencil, but his writing showed a degree of agraphia which alone would establish his identity beyond a doubt.
While it is quite possible that dishonest transactions, and even theft, may take place by telephone and the voices of the perpetrators may be unmistakable between distant cities, it is more likely that the phonographic registration of speech or other sound by means of a gramophone should become a matter of medico-legal investigation and a possible means that may lend great assistance in establishing personal identity. Although no precedent may be cited, it is not going into the domain of theoretical hypothesis to mention a discovery of such real scientific certainty that for years after death, and thousands of miles away, gives an indefinite number of reproductions that cannot possibly be mistaken by any one familiar with the voice before it had become “Edisonized.” Some gramophone disks lately shown me from Germany registered greetings and messages to relatives in Washington, who were delighted to recognize the exact reproduction of familiar tones and accents of the Fatherland.
So limitless is the field of research in this direction that there is scarcely an anthropological, biological, or medical discovery that may not sooner or later be applied with profit in the investigations of personal identity where the combined efforts of an attorney and an expert are required.
After the most rigid and scrutinizing anatomical and material examination is made and the closest inquisition entered on, it may often be impossible to give a reasonable explanation for the cause of the physical facts observed. The medical man should remember that his is the one great exception to the rule that rigidly excludes opinions, and that scientific men called as witnesses may not give their opinion as to the general merits of the case, but only as to the facts already proved. This qualifying rule being altogether reversed in investigations into personal identity, and the physician’s opinion as to identity being indispensable, it becomes a matter of most serious import that this opinion should be grounded upon absolute and well-attested facts.
MEDICO-LEGAL DETERMINATION
OF
THE TIME OF DEATH.
BY
H. P. LOOMIS, A.M., M.D.,
Professor of Pathology in the University of the City of New York; Visiting Physician
and Curator to Bellevue Hospital, New York; Pathologist to the
Board of Health, New York City; President New
York Pathological Society, etc., etc.