Born 1 Jun 1843; died 19 Mar 1930 at age 86.

#Scottish #physician who, from 1873, became a missionary in #Japan, where he worked as a surgeon superintendent at a #Tokyo hospital, taught at the local univeristy, and founded the Tokyo Institute for the Blind.

In the late 1870s, his attention was drawn to #fingerprints of ancient potters remaining on their work that he helped unearth at an #archaeological dig site in Japan.

He commenced a study of fingerprints, and became convinced that each #individual had a #unique #pattern. He corresponded on the subject with Charles Darwin, and published a paper about his ideas in Nature (28 Oct 1880). When he returned to Britain in 1886, he unsuccessfully offered his fingerprinting identification scheme for #forensic uses to Scotland Yard. Undeserved confusion on priority for the discovery with Francis Galton and Sir William J. Herschel lasted until 1917.

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