Editing Rudolf Virchow (section)

===Forensic work===

Virchow was the first to analyse hair in criminal investigation, and made the first forensic report on it in 1861.<ref>{{cite book|author=((Committee on Science, Technology, and Law, Federal Judicial Center, National Research Council, Policy and Global Affairs, Committee on the Development of the Third Edition of the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence))|title=Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence|publisher=National Academies Press|year=2011|location=US|isbn=978-0-3092-1425-4|pages=112|edition=3rd|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yVUMTYJPSaMC}}</ref> He was called as an expert witness in a murder case, and he used hair samples collected from the victim. He became the first to recognise the limitation of hair as evidence. He found that hairs can be different in an individual, that individual hair has characteristic features, and that hairs from different individuals can be strikingly similar. He concluded that evidence based on hair analysis is inconclusive.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Inman|first1=Keith|last2=Rudin|first2=Norah|title=Principles and Practice of Criminalistics the Profession of Forensic Science|date=2000|publisher=CRC Press|location=Hoboken|isbn=978-1-4200-3693-0|page=50|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6OTqqqGooccC}}</ref> His testimony runs:
{{Blockquote|[T]he hairs found on the defendant do not possess any so pronounced peculiarities or individualities [so] that no one with certainty has the right to assert that they must have originated from the head of the victim.<ref name=oien />}}