Section 1 7 — Dennatoglyphics 



17.12. Eurasians Digital and Palmar Dermatoglyphs. 



George Olivier (Paris, France). 



The fingerprints of 160 French-Vietnamese 

 crosses (100 male and 60 female) are studied. 

 They are compared with two new series of 500 

 Frenchmen and 250 Vietnamese. The charac- 

 teristics of the female group have been estimated 

 approximately. 



In general, the frequencies of the different 

 patterns fall between those of the Vietnamese 

 and those of the French. In males, they get 

 nearer to the Vietnamese frequencies; in females 

 they get nearer to the French frequencies; trans- 

 mission thus seems to vary somewhat according 

 to sex. The dominance of digital loops (Euro- 

 pean type) found by Abel, Cummins, Kimura 

 and Mikami, have not been found. The Viet- 

 namese realize at a maximum the dermato- 

 glyphic patterns typical of the xanthodermic 

 populations. 



The transverse palmar fold (simian fold) is 

 three times more frequent in Vietnamese than in 

 French populations. Its frequency in Eurasians 

 is intermediate. 



The only positive results are: 



1. The radial loops of the hypothenarian 

 eminence seem to be recessive (this contradicts 

 Kimura). 



2. The thenarian patterns seem to be recessive. 



17.13. On the Optimal Extraction of Genetical 

 Information from Fingerprints. Friedrich 

 Keiter (Hamburg, Germany). 



Fingerprints (and toeprints) are highly patter- 

 ned, tenfold, in a complicated manner intercor- 

 related morphological traits. The tenfinger- 

 ridgecount is a very incomplete indicator of 

 genetical information contained in them. Direct 

 finger-to-finger-comparison on ridgecounts and 

 on degree of similarity in controlled estimation 

 yields 20 (with toeprints 40) single data, whose 

 score can be combined into a simple discrimi- 

 nant system (method of "Trennlogarithmus", 

 separating logarithms). In a sample of Mato 

 grosso-indians (Chavantes) by this procedure 

 the "critical values" (ratio of the frequency of 

 the same finding in related and random pairs) 

 have been found 8.40:1 for pattern similarity, 

 2.85:1 for finger-to-finger-ridgecount against 

 1.22 only for ten finger-ridgecounts alone. The 

 same multiplied discrimination effect of parents- 

 children or sibs compared with randomly 

 chosen pairs of nonrelated individuals is well 

 established for Northern Germany since 1955. 



Agreement with or deviation from multifac- 

 torial-additive inheritance can be checked using 

 the same principles. 



17.14. Genetics of the a-b Ridge Count on the Human 

 Palm Prints. Jose Pons (Oviedo, Spain). 



The present study deals with the distribution 

 of the number of ridges between the triradii a 

 and b of the human palms. As an individual 

 trait the sum of the a-b counts of the two hands 

 is used and, as a measure of bimanual asymmetry 

 we analyze the differences between hands (right 

 minus left). After some brief remarks on racial 

 differences, we consider the heritability of this 

 trait by calculating the intraclass correlation 

 among sibs, as well as the parent-child correla- 

 tions. 



For the study in the general population a 

 series of 412 Spaniards (200 males and 212 

 females) is used, comprising unrelated persons 

 only. For analysing the heritability we have a 

 series of 307 sibs falling into 123 sibships and of 

 57 families composed of both parents and at 

 least one child. 



17.15. Inheritance of Dermatoglyphic Formulae. — I. 

 Ulnar Loops in Complete or Partial Symmetri- 

 cal Formulae.C. Lazaro (Montevideo, Urugay). 



In a previous work we have found that the 

 observed frequency of the ten most common 

 dermatoglyphic formulae for the population of 

 Montevideo departs significantly from the cal- 

 culated one. Based on this conclusion, we pre- 

 sent in this paper the results of the study of 

 ulnar loops in complete or partial symmetrical 

 formulae in all possible combinations in 200 

 families taken at random in our population. 



The results of our data do not show apparently 

 any simple mendelian mechanism of inheritance; 

 they rather suggest the action of a polygenic 

 system, governing the genetics of dermato- 

 glyphic formulae. 



17.16. The Hereditary Pattern of the Quantitative 

 Value of Fingerprints from a Critical Aspect. 



Margarete Weninger (Vienna, Austria). 



Among the characteristics of the digital pat- 

 terns the importance of the quantitative value 

 (QV) has long ago been stressed. In spite of the 

 great difficulties resulting from the sexual dif- 



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