142 THE SENSE OF TOUCH IN ANIMALS 



attention in 1823, when Purkinge wrote a short memoir in Latin, 

 reproduced and translated in Dr. Galton's work on Finger- Prints. 

 In 1868, Ahx pubhshed an important essay in the Annates des 

 Sciences Naturelles, in which he described fully, the patterns and 

 arrangements of ridges on the hand and foot of monkeys. 

 Blaschko (1884 and 1887) and Kollmann (1883 and 1885) and 

 Klaatsch (1888) have dealt with the gross and minute anatomy 

 of the pads of the mammahan hand and foot. Ch. Fere has con- 

 tributed numerous papers on the prints of the human fingers and 

 toes and the relation of the papillary ridges to the sense of touch 

 and the functions of the hand. Dr. Galton has done more than 

 any other observer in his researches, which began before 1892, 

 to systematise the study of human finger-prints and to apply 

 his results to valuable biometrical studies. These have led to 

 his well-known teachings on the subject of personal identification 

 by means of human finger-prints. Dr. Hepburn (1893 and 1896) 

 brought forward somewhat fresh views on the meaning and 

 functions of the papillary ridges on the hands and feet of monkeys 

 and men, maintaining that the primary function of these ridges, 

 is a mechanical one, by which slipping in walking and prehension 

 is prevented. E. R. Henry also published papers on the identi- 

 fication of criminals by fuiger-prints (1899 and 1900). The 

 views of Dr. Hepburn were popularised and expounded in a 

 paper by Mr. Lyddekker in 1903 on Monkey Hand-Prints, and 

 Retzius, in 1904, wrote papers on the " tastballen," as he termed 

 them, of the hand and foot of man. These are the most notable 

 communications in the years preceding two recent and remark- 

 able memoirs, the first, in 1904, by Miss Inez L. Whipple, who 

 followed out certain researches and suggestions of Dr. H. H. 

 Wilder, on the palm and sole prints of various mammals. Miss 

 Whipple in a long paper, occupying more than one hundred pages, 

 which was pubhshed in English in the Zeitschrift fur MorpJiologie 

 und Anthropologie, has dealt with the ventral surface of the hand 

 and foot of mammals in a masterly and exhaustive mamier. She 

 introduces certain useful terms and takes up first, the description 

 and meaning of the pads found in the hand and foot of mammals, 

 and treats these as essentially walking-pads, tracing their 



