Glossary
Common terms from the nineteenth-century crime and policing.
ambrotypes: An early method of photography developed by James Ambrose Cutting, which employed a glass negative.
Aqua Tofana: Also known as Tofina’s water. A poisonous mixture which contained arsenic. Named after its creator, Teofania di Adamo, a seventeenth-century entrepreneur.
atavism: Relating to or characterized by a revision into something ancient or ancestral. It is the theory that some subcultures were “evolving backwards,” weakening, rather than improving, their evolutionary fitness
Bertillonage: The first modern system of criminal identification. It applies anthropometry and identifies criminals through key body measurements
bezoar stone: Formed in the intestinal organs of animals such as goats. It was believed to be an antidote for poison.
body snatchers: Grave robbers; an illicit source of human anatomical specimens.
carboy: A large bottle of green glass used for carrying corrosive liquids; were enclosed in the basketwork or boxed for protection.
chirography: Penmanship, or the art of handwriting.
corpus delecti: Physical evidence.
Dactyloscopy: The analysis, reading, identifying, and classifying fingerprint patterns.
Daguerrotypes: The first commercially successful photographic process. Named after their inventor, Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre. The images were created on a silvered copper plate which was not flexible and quite heavy.
graphology: The study of handwriting for the purpose of judging psychological attributes of an individual.
hyoscine: An alkaloid sedative.
luz bone: In ancient times, it is the part of the body from which the entire body of a dead person would be resurrected at the day of judgement.
medical jurisprudence: Original term for “forensic medicine” which is occasionally still used.
minutiae: The small or precise details of an object. The term originally used to describe the patterns of fingerprints.
oraniology: Old term for phrenology.
phrenology: A pseudoscience that contended that traits and characteristics such as intelligence, creativity, and criminality manifested itself physically and could be read in the shape and size of the skull.
portrait parlé: Translated as, “speaking picture.” The system devised by Alphonse Bertillon in 1882 to identify individuals with police records.
psychopomp: A spiritual presence whose purpose is to warn of approaching disaster or to accompany a human to the afterworld.
recidivist: A convicted criminal who reoffends. First coined in 1844 (récidivistes).
thieftakers: Individuals (sometimes likened to “bounty hunters”) who received payment when an offender they apprehended was successfully prosecuted. They were regarded as being corrupt “to the extreme.”
tobyman: A slang term for a highwayman.