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Sherlock Holmes still amazes today. His arrogant investigative style, based on superior knowledge, inspires readers in present as well as his companion, Doctor Watson. The fascination of stories of British author Arthur Conan Doyle is based above all on fact that Holmes, who dissolved his first case in 1887, United virtually all forensic innovations of his presence in one person. That was unrealistic, but delightful. Holmes excelled especially in confrontation with traces and objects at scene – i.e. with mute witnesses of a crime, which one also calls “realities” or “evidences”.
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The analysis of tracks gained importance in course of 19th century, because it was supposed to close a space in investigative work of police and judiciary. Testimonies had been discredited step by step by science: The narratives of a Targang, it had been recognized, were determined to a significant extent by individual ability and will of witnesses to perceive something and to To remember what happened. Could this be a safe basis for criminal work? The scientific and technologically sound survey of crime scenes promised to be a good alternative.
Sherlock Holmes looked at his investigations mostly with contempt for detectives who worked at crime scene – wher inspector was now called Lestrade or Hopkins. These officials could not, of course, be able to reach brilliant master of subject. They lacked expertise, y simply did not know how to secure traces, so that modern forensic technology could evaluate m. Conan Doyle thus staged a real problem for police: The new forensic methods were only accessible to officials and investigating magistrates by using a wide network of specialists. That was tedious – and presupposed his own knowledge.
Peter Becker
is professor for history of 19th and 20th centuries at University of Vienna
The modern analysis in laboratories could only be successful if traces at crime scene were secured as carefully and completely as possible. For this, often still hulking dabbling of pre-modern police work had to be overcome. The detective cop had to have at least basal knowledge of what science and laboratory were capable of. Such knowledge, however, was more exception among policemen at turn of century, as following example from Germany shows.
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In 1888, veterinarian Wilhelm Boar proposed to Berlin police to collect fingerprints at crime scenes in order to be able to determine who had resided re. Boar had come up with idea of his work in a slaughterhouse: There was a lot of blood flowing, and he had observed how workers regularly dried ir bloody hands with towels. They left clear prints of ir skin line images in fabric. Boar was able to detect in se prints possible clues, with which also presence of a suspect at a crime scene would have to be verifiable. The veterinarian shared his idea of police and even developed a procedure to preserve imprints by means of iodine.
This text comes from magazine contemporary History No. 1/2018. You can purchase current booklet at kiosk or here.
The Berlin police, however, could not be impressed by his proposal. In June 1888, her president wrote: “As far as worldly officials are able to remember”, “in case of doorknobs, glasses and or objects suitable for reception and resignation of a hand image, even in most careful inspection of crime scene, such Tracks were not perceived “.
You have to allowance Berlin police that proposal came from a veterinarian. This was not necessarily a technical background predestined for forensic innovations. Boar’s idea, however, was more than one step ahead of his time. Only more than 20 years later – Boar had died in meantime – police also began to take fingerprints of suspects and detainees in Germany. They were collected, different forms classified and registered. The fingerprinting process, fingerprint data, established itself. Slowly idea of Wilhelm Boar came to her full right.
