8127/frame/fm

 
b.
Nonbiological Evidence — What, How, Where?
 
i.
Documents.
Because documents, like fingerprints, are easily visible,
their recognition as possible evidence and their analysis began relatively early
in history. Before chemical analysis of inks and paper was well developed, it
was still possible to compare handwriting patterns. The first known treatise
on systematic document examination, written by Frenchman François
Demelle, dates back to 1609, and a second was written by another Frenchman,
Jacques Raveneau in 1665. C. Ainsworth Mitchell, in Great Britain, worked
extensively on questioned document identification. He not only focused on
handwriting comparison, but engaged in a comprehensive study of the chem-
istry of inks, a different aspect entirely. American Albert Osborn is generally
considered the foremost document examiner of his time. In 1910, he pub-
lished 
 
Questioned Documents
, a book which remained the standard for many
years (Dillon, 1977).
 
ii.
Physical match.
Similarly, an often-ignored, but highly useful cate-
gory of evidence is physical matching. Probably the first recorded case in
which physical matching led to a suspect was that of John Toms in England
in 1784. The torn edge of a piece of newspaper used for wadding in his pistol
matched a remaining piece in his pocket (Kind and Overman, 1972). Because
of the random nature of its generation, physical matching is often very strong
evidence. However, because the analysis of physical match evidence requires
no fancy instrumentation or chemical reactions, and the interpretation is
based on common sense, cases in which it plays a significant role do not tend
to make the history annals. Physical matching does relate specifically, how-
ever, to the new concept of 
 
divisible matter
which we will discuss briefly in
the next section and in depth in Chapter 4.