Experiments were made as to these vibrations, and it was proved that, after a little study, one could distinctly detect and recognise the crepitations _in relation to each individual_.

They increased or decreased in every phase of health, thought, or excitement, and were extinct the moment death had mastered its victim.

About twenty years later, experiments were made with a man in Paris, who had an abnormally acute sense of sound (Nature's compensation for want of sight, as he had been born blind).

In a very short time this man could detect the slightest change or irregularity in these crepitations, and through the changes was able to tell with wonderful accuracy about how old a person was, and how near they were to illness, and even death.
The study of these corpuscles was also taken up by Sir Charles Bell, who, in 1874, demonstrated that each corpuscle contained the end of a nerve fibre, and was in immediate connection with the brain.

This great specialist also demonstrated that every portion of the brain was in touch with the nerves of the hand and more particularly with the corpuscles found in the tips of the fingers and the lines of the hand.
[Illustration: LORD KITCHENER'S HAND.] The detection of criminals by taking impressions of the tips of the fingers and by thumb marks is now used by the police of almost every country, and thousands of criminals have been tracked down and identified by this means.
To-day, at Scotland Yard, is to be seen almost an entire library now devoted to books on this side of the subject and to the collections that the police have made, and yet, in my short time, I remember how the idea was scoffed at when Monsieur Bertillon and the French police first commenced the detection of criminals by this method.