Harold Cummins

Purkinje's Observations (1823) on Finger Prints and Other Skin Features

In 1823 there was published by the distinguished Czech physiologist and histologist, Johannes Evangelista Purkinje (1787-1869), a thesis entitled Commentatio de examine physiologico organi visus et systematis cutanei. A modest octavo pamphlet of fifty-eight pages and one plate, printed by the University Press at Breslau, it is one of the classics of scientific literature, embodying the results of important pioneering studies on the eye and on skin. The document is of no little his-

Ancient Finger Prints in Clay

printing. These moulds of human fingers are of special interest as traces, since in clay they may be preserved through the centuries. A few examples of ancient prints are presented, not only for their intrinsic interest but to provide the setting for discussion of a moot question in finger-print history, as to whether such prints in clay ever were made with an aim comparable to that of present-day identification. Certain principles of identification method must be first introduced. For

The Anatomy of Research

“Research” is a word that has shades of meaning. The medical student who consults one or two books and a few articles in preparing a paper on Sir William Osler is doing research of a kind; Harvey Cushing did research on an entirely different plane for the writing of his classic biography. The teen-age boy who thoughtfully dissects the brain of a cat is a researcher in one sense of the word but it is a sense quite different from that applying to the professional investigator in neurology. Only that form of research deserving to be recognized as such in medicine and allied sciences is characterized here. The principles of such research have been set forth many a time and by persons whose approaches are variously shaped by the fields in which they work. Yet there is general agreement on basic principles. There is no more able an exposition than the one by Claude Bernard (1); written nearly seven decades ago, the book describes essentials of scientific method that are permanent. As a beginning, let research b...

Evidence limiting the time of inception of intrauterine digital amputations.

Evidence is derived from epidermal ridge configurations, in four subjects admitting diagnosis of congenital amputations (as opposed to agenesia), which points to the existence of the affection probably prior to the eleventh week of gestation. Three of the cases are considered in another publication, 1 where they are recorded as numbers 20, 508, and 509; a fourth, a still-born infant presenting multiple digital amputations in varied degrees, is comparable to 509. It has been shown 1 that the alignment of epidermal ridges, hence their fashioning of patterns and of patternless series of ridges, is accomplished through the medium of growth forces obtaining in early fetal development. Such forces in growth vary locally, in accordance with the irregular molding of palmar and plantar reliefs. The influence on alignment hardly can be effective after ridges are initially elaborated (eleventh week), although it is possible that the regulation through growth may manifest its effect before the ridge anlagen actually appear. There is no evidence to show that a ridge arrangement, once effected, can be altered, barring, of course, its participation in the generalized increase of size. With this premise of permanence, coupled with the demonstrated genetic relation existing between the form of a part and the character of its ridge configuration, it is warranted to assume that a congenitally defective hand or foot will display configurations conforming to its particularized molding if the abnormality existed during the critical period of ridge determination. Such conformity is invariable in abnormalities which are initially present in the member (such as syndactylism, ectrodactylism, etc.). The conformity occurs also in the examples of amputation here reported, to the extent that the configurations are individually unique, being so far modified from the normal.

A fraternal twin pregnancy

Abstract The intrauterine relations of a pair of fraternal twins (male-female; dichorionic) near or in the eighth lunar month are described. The maternal ovaries, prepared histologically, show that the twins arose from ova in separate follicles of the right ovary, as indicated by the presence in it of two corpora lutea and the absence of a corpus in the left ovary. Since the two corpora lutea are very closely approximated it is quite probable that surface inspection of the ovary would have failed to disclose the double nature of the mass. Inspection of the ovarian surface at laparotomy is the only feasible observation in some twin cases, and the present finding points a warning against assuming that the full number of corpora lutea is invariably noted by this means.