The Alienist is a crime novel by Caleb Carr first published in 1994 and is the first book in the Kreizler series. It takes place in New York City in 1896, and includes appearances by many famous figures of New York society in that era, including Theodore Roosevelt and J. P. Morgan. The sequel to the novel is The Angel of Darkness. The story follows Roosevelt, then New York City police commissioner, and Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, as their investigative team attempts to solve gruesome murders through new methods including fingerprinting and psychology. The first murder victim investigated is a 13-year-old immigrant who has had his eyes removed, his genitals removed and stuffed in his mouth, and other injuries. The investigators deal with various interest groups that wish to maintain the status quo regarding the poor immigrant population in New York City.
First edition cover
Ambulance standing outside Bellevue, a psychiatric hospital, in New York City in 1895
The history of anthropometry includes its use as an early tool of anthropology, use for identification, use for the purposes of understanding human physical variation in paleoanthropology and in various attempts to correlate physical with racial and psychological traits. At various points in history, certain anthropometrics have been cited by advocates of discrimination and eugenics often as part of novel social movements or based upon pseudoscience.
Pithecometra: In the frontispiece from his 1863 Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature, Thomas Huxley compared skeletons of apes to humans.
A head-measuring tool designed for anthropological research in the early 1910s. Theodor Kocher was inventor of the craniometer.
Illustration from "The Speaking Portrait" (Pearson's Magazine, Vol XI, January to June 1901) demonstrating the principles of Bertillon's anthropometry
A Bertillon record for Francis Galton, from a visit to Bertillon's laboratory in 1893