Dr. Edmond Locard

Dr. Edmond Locard (13 December 1877 – 4 May 1966) was a pioneer in forensic science and his contributions to the field have proved invaluable. Locard was one of the founders of the International Academy of Criminalistics and he has published over 40 books and articles in French, English, German and Spanish.

Locard conceived what is now known as Locard’s Exchange Principal. “Toute action de l’homme, et a fortiori, l’action violente qu’est un crime, ne peut pas se dérouler sans laisser quelque marque” – La police et les méthodes scienifiques (1934) , page 8. Which translated to English means: “Any action of an individual, and obviously the violent action constituting a crime, cannot occur without leaving a trace.”

Dr. Locard’s contribution to fingerprint analysis and identification is also significant. He established the first rules of the minimum number of minutiae necessary for fingerprint identification. He is known as the father of Poreoscopy, which is the study of pores that appear in fingerprint ridges, and their use in the process of identifying individuals through latent finger prints. He also realized the value of the shape of the ridge as being permanent, and he should also be known as the father of Edgeoscopy.

Locard went beyond the variations of the individual friction ridge path which Sir Francis Galton noted as he defined those friction ridge events.  The variations of the individual friction ridge features which he noted, has evolved into “Ridgeology”, which is a coined phrase describing the use of those features in the fingerprint identification process.  Dr. Locard should also then be known as the father of “Ridgeology”.