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(By Andrew Boone: Originally Published in 1947)
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A defendant was on trial for assault. The jury was in doubt when Dr. Paul L. Kirk, of theUniversity of California's crime laboratory, showed them a pair of similar hairs woundaround a glass bobbin. One hair was found on the scene of the crime; the other takenfrom the accused."I can't prove that these two hairs are from the same head," said Dr. Kirk. But then hewent on and demonstrated point after point of identity between the two strands.The verdict was "guilty."This was not the first time the the scientific study of human hair has helped bring theguilty to justice or clear those falsely accused. Dr. Kirk, a professor of biochemistry,began his study of hair some 20 years ago. Since that time he has worked in hislaboratory on more than 150 cases, representing crimes ranging from petty larceny tomurder. And although Dr. Kirk is the first to admit that hair is not yet a positive meansof identification, his courtroom testimony never has been discredited.To describe a hair scientifically you must look inside it, and study its structure -particularly when a man's liberty or life is at stake. A good head of hair contains about130,000 strands. They assume many shapes, the majority being oval in form.Their structure is complex. A hair is divided into three parts: scale, cortex, and medulla.The scales appear as tiny shingles, several hundred to the inch. The cortex,immediatelyunder the surface scales, is composed of a group of tiny elongated fibrils. The medulla(not always present), is a pithy core of cells interspersed with diffused pigment,pigment cells, and air spaces, lying along the central part of the shaft.And to confuse the hair detective, the hairs on the crown of a man's head are not thesame as those on the nape of his neck. A permanent wave can result in two spots of asingle hair being different in both appearance and composition. Dyeing alters surfacehair color but not internal-pigment color, while bleaching does both.Refractive index (the ability to slow up light passed through it) averages higher inwomen's hair than in men's, which helps the hair sleuth. Knowing the subject's race,Kirk can examine a hair, and four out of five times tell if it comes from a man or awoman.
 
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Identifying the guilty and absolving the innocent by means of hair, however, is not yeta job for the cops. A vast store of knowledge must first be acquired by investigatorssuch as Kirk. Comprehensive files including nearly all types of human hair must be builtup and made available for study.Kirk has already filed 100 hairs each from 400 people, mostly willing students at theUniversity of California, covering all parts of their bodies. He plans to obtain samplesfrom some of them over a period of 20 years to study changes that develop with age.Although scores of factors enter into the hair identification picture, Dr. Kirk dependslargely on the following major points to prove his cases:
Color:
This is the first and most obvious, and in many cases can quickly eliminate suspicionfrom a person. But color must be interpreted with caution, for shades of hair varywidely on a single head, such as from blonde to brown on a red head. Kirk hopes thatan absolute color chart for hair may be worked out, and that the chemical identity ordifferences of pigments may be established as a check on color.
Diameter:
Before assigning any great significance to the fineness or coarseness of an individualhair, accurate measurements of the maximum diameter is taken with a calibratedocular micrometer, and of the minimum diameter with a calibrated fine adjustment ona microscope.
Scale Count:
Scores of counts must be taken along one or several hairs to obtain an average. If theaverage count on your hair, for instance, is 24 scales for each two-tenths of amillimeter of length, all hair averaging less than 22 or more than 26 would beconsidered as coming from someone else.
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