History of Fingerprinting.

Sir William Herschel, Chief Magistrate of the Hooghly district in Jungipoor India, was the first to use fingerprints and palmprints on contracts with native Indian " … to frighten [him] out of all thought of repudiating his singature."

Herschel made a habit of requiring palm prints–and later, simply the prints of the right Index and Middle fingers–on every contract made with the locals. Personal contact with the document, they believed, made the contract more binding than if they simply signed it. Thus, the first wide-scale, modern-day use of fingerprints was predicated, not upon scientific evidence, but upon superstitious beliefs.

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