<P> By the turn of the 20th century, the science of forensics had become largely established in the sphere of criminal investigation . Scientific and surgical investigation was widely employed by the Metropolitan Police during their pursuit of the mysterious Jack the Ripper, who had killed a number of prostitutes in the 1880s . This case is a watershed in the application of forensic science . Large teams of policemen conducted house - to - house inquiries throughout Whitechapel . Forensic material was collected and examined . Suspects were identified, traced and either examined more closely or eliminated from the inquiry . Police work follows the same pattern today . Over 2000 people were interviewed, "upwards of 300" people were investigated, and 80 people were detained . </P> <P> The investigation was initially conducted by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), headed by Detective Inspector Edmund Reid . Later, Detective Inspectors Frederick Abberline, Henry Moore, and Walter Andrews were sent from Central Office at Scotland Yard to assist . Initially, butchers, surgeons and physicians were suspected because of the manner of the mutilations . The alibis of local butchers and slaughterers were investigated, with the result that they were eliminated from the inquiry . Some contemporary figures thought the pattern of the murders indicated that the culprit was a butcher or cattle drover on one of the cattle boats that plied between London and mainland Europe . Whitechapel was close to the London Docks, and usually such boats docked on Thursday or Friday and departed on Saturday or Sunday . The cattle boats were examined, but the dates of the murders did not coincide with a single boat's movements, and the transfer of a crewman between boats was also ruled out . </P> <P> At the end of October, Robert Anderson asked police surgeon Thomas Bond to give his opinion on the extent of the murderer's surgical skill and knowledge . The opinion offered by Bond on the character of the "Whitechapel murderer" is the earliest surviving offender profile . Bond's assessment was based on his own examination of the most extensively mutilated victim and the post mortem notes from the four previous canonical murders . In his opinion the killer must have been a man of solitary habits, subject to "periodical attacks of homicidal and erotic mania", with the character of the mutilations possibly indicating "satyriasis". Bond also stated that "the homicidal impulse may have developed from a revengeful or brooding condition of the mind, or that religious mania may have been the original disease but I do not think either hypothesis is likely". </P> <P> Handbook for Coroners, police officials, military policemen was written by the Austrian criminal jurist Hans Gross in 1893, and is generally acknowledged as the birth of the field of criminalistics . The work combined in one system fields of knowledge that had not been previously integrated, such as psychology and physical science, and which could be successfully used against crime . Gross adapted some fields to the needs of criminal investigation, such as crime scene photography . He went on to found the Institute of Criminalistics in 1912, as part of the University of Graz' Law School . This Institute was followed by many similar institutes all over the world . </P>

When was forensic science first used in the uk