Bertillon, << BUR tuh lon, >> system is a method that was once widely used to identify people by their physical measurements. It was named after the French statistician Alphonse Bertillon and was first used in Paris in 1873. Bertillon had the French police measure parts of the body of every prisoner and make a record of the height, the length of arms and legs, and the length and width of the skull. These measurements, 11 in all, do not change greatly after a person has matured. Fingerprinting has mostly replaced the Bertillon system because it is more accurate.
