A BRIEF RESUME OF THE HISTORY OF THE STUDY OF HANDS THROUGH THE CENTURIES TO THE PRESENT DAY The success I had during the twenty-five years in which I was connected with this study was, I believe, chiefly owing to the fact that although my principal study was the lines and formation of hands, yet I did not confine myself alone to that particular page in the book of Nature.

I endeavoured to study every phase of thought that can throw light on human life; consequently the very ridges of the skin, the hair found on the hands, all were used as a detective would use a clue to accumulate evidence.

I found people were sceptical of such a study only because they had not the subject presented to them in a logical manner.
There are hundreds of facts connected with the hand that people have rarely, if ever, heard of, and I think it will not be out of place if I touch on them here.

For instance, in regard to what are known as the corpuscles, Meissner, in 1853, proved that these little molecular substances were distributed in a peculiar manner in the hand itself.

He found that in the tips of the fingers they were 108 to the square line, with 400 papillae; that they gave forth certain distinct crepitations, or vibrations, and that in the red lines of the hand they were most numerous and, strange to say, were found in straight individual rows in the lines of the palm.