

THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



SEPTEMBEE, 1903. 



PALM AND SOLE IMPEESSIONS AND THEIE USE FOR 

 PURPOSES OF PERSONAL IDENTIFICATION. 



By Professor HARRIS HAWTHORNE WILDER, 



SMITH COLLEGE. 



"TN a former number of this magazine (November, 1902) I gave a 

 -*- brief account of the epidermic ridges upon the human palmar 

 and plantar surfaces, and emphasized their great individual difference 

 and their applicability for use in the identification of individuals, liv- 

 ing or dead. In the present article I shall endeavor to set forth a 

 simple method by means of which these individual records may be 

 formulated and classified and thus be rendered serviceable as a practical 

 system of personal identification. 



Aside from the use of photographs and the more obvious descriptive 

 methods, which include such attributes as height, weight, color of eyes 

 and hair, moles, birth and tattoo marks, etc., there are now in use two 

 distinct scientific systems of identification, that of M. Alphonse Ber- 

 tillon, based upon bodily measurements, and that of Mr. Francis Gal- 

 ton, based upon the epidermic ridges of the finger tips. 



These two systems are absolutely distinct from one another, al- 

 though, judging from frequent newspaper notices, they are popularly 

 confused, with a tendency to ascribe both to Bertillon, in the same 

 way that electrical inventions are popularly associated with the name 

 of Edison, or theories of evolution with that of Darwin. Indeed, there 

 seems to be a common disposition in America to ascribe the idea of the 

 use of 'thumb-marks' to Mark Twain, who in his 'Puddenhead Wilson' 

 has undoubtedly done much to call the public attention to the epidermic 

 ridges of that very restricted area, although, as a consequence of the 

 story, one continually meets with the notion that the epidermic pattern 



VOL. LXIII. — 25. 



