Since ancient times, there has been an opinion among the people that the image of a murderer is imprinted in the eyes of the murdered. Naturally, such a phenomenon has always been of interest to the investigating authorities, because nothing would have been easier than to see a portrait of a criminal in the victim's pupils. Since this phenomenon was not confirmed purely visually - no matter how much they looked into the eyes of the dead, they did not see anything - then specialists joined the study of this problem. They were doctors, opticians and photographers. At the end of the 19th century, they managed to create a scientific hypothesis, which they began to actively develop.
Professor Kuehne from the University of Heidelberg should be considered a pioneer on this path. He also introduced the term "optography" (the ability to preserve external objects on the retina) into scientific circulation in 1879, and called the resulting image an optogram. He conducted his first experiments on rabbits. The head of a live rabbit in the dark was fixed one and a half meters from the square hole in the window shutter, and the brightly lit hole was opened for 2 minutes. Then the eyeball of the rabbit was removed and placed in a solution of alum. At the same time, it was possible to observe how a clearly visible square image of the shutter appears against the red-pink background of the retina. The scientist's discovery spread all over the world - reports appeared on the pages of numerous newspapers and magazines thatthat the possibility of identifying the murderer by his imprint on the eyes of the murdered has been proven. The police immediately decided to take advantage of this. Chief of Police of Berlin Modai ordered to examine the eyes of one of the men killed in a drunken brawl. The retina was photographed, an optogram was made, but there was no image of the killer on it. But this still did not prove anything, because a clear technology for the process of taking optograms had not been developed. Everything was done at an amateur level.because no clear technology has been developed for the process of taking optograms. Everything was done on an amateur level.because no clear technology has been developed for the process of taking optograms. Everything was done at an amateur level.
Meanwhile, Professor Kuehne, in his experiments with rabbits, decided to go to man. In 1882, he made an optogram of the criminal's eye 10 minutes after his execution. The image of the executioner was supposed to be imprinted on the optogram, but nothing but a clearly visible spot was visible there. Kuehne interpreted it as the disk of the sun, which the criminal was looking at at the last moment of his life.
The belief in the reality of optography was very great, and the detectives of Russia tried to adopt it. So, in 1873, according to the notes of Putilin, the famous chief of the detective police of St. Petersburg, the hieromonk of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, Illarion, was murdered. From multiple wounds, he died at the scene of the crime, and the situation testified to the struggle between the monk and the murderer. So the murdered man saw his executioner! The doctor who arrived at the scene, having heard about optography, peered into the monk's pupils for a long time, but saw nothing - they were cloudy and dark. Without the use of special means, a simple examination of the victim's eyes, of course, did nothing. New ways of developing images on the retina were needed. It seemed that photography should not have contributed to this. In 1891, at a photographic exhibition in St. Petersburg, an exhibit of Fortale was presented. It was a slideshow of a photograph taken by a Saratov photographer Ushakov on behalf of a forensic investigator from the eyes of a soldier Belousova killed in 1878. Monsieur Fortuil told the visitors of the exhibition that the killer of the poor soldier was found from this photograph. If this was true, then this was the world's first case of this kind! Forteil's exhibit made a sensation not only in Russia, but also in scientific circles in Europe. Experts immediately became interested in him. Scientific journals are full of analytical articles on this topic; reports and reports were made at the Russian Technical Society, the Society for the Dissemination of Technical Knowledge and the St. Petersburg Photographic Society. The authenticity of the photograph was confirmed by the prosecutor of the Saratov judicial department and the scientific community. "The portrait of the murderer was reflected on the pupil as clearly as on a photographic card," wrote the newspaper "Son of the Fatherland" in 1891. But there were also skeptics who explained the presence of a portrait on the slide by ordinary retouching.
Doctor of Medicine Talco decided to conduct his own investigation of this story. Having picked up the investigative materials in Saratov, he found out the following: there were two killed - the Belousovs' wife. This happened on December 23, 1878 at 9 pm. One of the protocols stated that both eyes of Yakov Belousov were removed by the dissector, and that of his wife Anna - only one, as the best preserved one. Then these eyes were transferred to the photographer Ushakov "for photographic removal from the transparent cornea of the image that could be on it." But nothing more was said about the images obtained in the criminal case. The investigation took a long time, but the killer was never found. That is, Mr. Forteil, with his exhibit at a photographic exhibition, simply passed off wishful thinking.
However, interest in this "science" did not wane - the prospect of getting an image of the murderer directly from his victim was very tempting! From time to time, more and more messages appeared in the press about the successful identification of the optogram with the appearance of the criminal. So, in 1896, in one of the Russian magazines it was said that in a certain place of the Gadyachsky district of the Poltava province, the family of the owner of the inn, Herschel, was killed. Herschel's dead nephew, Leibu Poritsky, was found with open eyes. A photographer was called from Poltava, who took X-rays of his pupils. The negative showed a man in a white shirt, but his face was not clearly visible. With the help of this photograph, they intended to find the criminal. In 1908, Permskiye Gubernskiye Vedomosti, referring to the Nizhny Novgorod newspaper Volgar, reportedthat the public of the city of Syzran was greatly agitated by the murder of the nobleman Nasedkin. During the autopsy on the corpse of the murdered man, on whose face an expression of horror was frozen, the doctor noticed the reflection of a human face in the wide open pupils of Nasedkin. The deceased's eyes were immediately photographed. The result was a perfectly clear imprint of the face of the wanted extortionist Sasha Mauser, whose card had long been in the hands of the authorities. Without making the results of the investigation public, the authorities began a search and soon detained Sasha, the Volga press wrote. These were all just rumors, not documented by anything.the doctor noticed the reflection of a human face in the wide open pupils of Nasedkin. The deceased's eyes were immediately photographed. The result was a perfectly clear imprint of the face of the wanted extortionist Sasha Mauser, whose card had long been in the hands of the authorities. Without making the results of the investigation public, the authorities began a search and soon detained Sasha, the Volga press wrote. These were all just rumors, nothing documented.the doctor noticed the reflection of a human face in the wide open pupils of Nasedkin. The deceased's eyes were immediately photographed. The result was a perfectly clear imprint of the face of the wanted extortionist Sasha Mauser, whose card had long been in the hands of the authorities. Without making the results of the investigation public, the authorities began a search and soon detained Sasha, the Volga press wrote. These were all just rumors, not documented by anything.
The hope for the disclosure of the secret of fixation in the eyes of external objects has not diminished for many decades. It would seem that the unsuccessful experiments of previous testers should have rejected this dream as unrealizable, but humanity stubbornly did not want to part with it. When in 1924 in Germany there were brutal murders of 8 people, all the newspapers of the world reported that on the retina of one of the victims it was possible to distinguish an image of a man with a raised ax! However, this turned out to be an invention of idle reporters. The unfortunate man could not see the killer, if only because the blow was struck from behind.
Thus, in the entire history of optography, there was not a single case of obtaining an image of a murderer. Experiments continued until 1925, when the German professor Poop summed up these studies. He believed that the fixation of the image of objects in front of the eyes, of course, occurs, but it is impossible to reveal it, since it lasts only for one third of a second. Poop strongly recommended to continue research in this direction, applying the latest scientific achievements.
Promotional video:
A lot of time has passed since then, and only in recent years have German scientists again returned to the problem of optography. Research is still underway in purely theoretical terms, and encouraging results have already appeared. However, the matter has not yet reached the practical application of optography in forensic science.
As often happens, while studying one phenomenon, scientists simultaneously encounter other, no less intriguing and mysterious facts that also require explanation. So, in January 1895, in the Belgian city of Ghent, a student on duty at the hospital told the ophthalmologist Deneff professor of medicine that a sick woman was lying in one of the wards "with numbers in her eyes." The professor, who at first took the student's message as a joke, nevertheless went to the patient. To his great surprise, he saw the same as the student; in one eye of the woman, the figure 10 was clearly distinguished, and in the other - 45!
The woman's eyes were photographed and made sure that this was not an optical illusion - the same numbers were clearly visible in the photo. All inquiries of the patient about the reasons and circumstances of the appearance of the numbers in her eyes did not give any result. She did not know anything and even more surprised the scientists by informing them that these numbers are inherited in their family! Her last daughter had them too! There is still no explanation for this phenomenon.
Mikhail PAZIN. "X-Files of the 20th Century"