How the English fingerprint method arose / [Henry Faulds].

  • Faulds, Henry, 1843-1930.
Date:
[1915?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: How the English fingerprint method arose / [Henry Faulds]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    a correct summary of my original statements, he shows that I pointed the right way, as he believes, to gain a knowledge of man’s genetic descent by a study of the corresponding lineations of certain lower animals, such as lemurs, and that I had indicated other directions in which medical jurisprudence might profit by such investigations. These are of no interest here. In a brief footnote Dr. Schlaginhaufen deals with the published correspondence between Sir Wm, Herschel and myself, which note I here give verbatim : “Zeitlich erschien die Publikation Faulds’ friiher; aber Herschel wies durch die Veroffentlichung eines halboffiziellen Briefes nacb, dass er sich schon 1877 mit dem Gegendstand beschaftigt habe. Jedenfalls sind beide Beobachter unabhangig voneinander auf die gleiche Idee gekommen, und wenn auch die Materialien, die Herschel lieferte, fur die kriminelle Anthro- pologie speziell von grosserer Bedeutung waren, so hat Faulds doch in seiner ersten Mitteilung die Erforschung der Hautleisten von einem hoheren Gesichtspunkt aus erfasst und ihr in einem umfass^nderen Plan den Weg vorgezeichnet.” That is to say : “ Faulds’s publication was earlier in time, but Herschel showed by the publication of a half-official letter that he had been engaged with the method from 1877 onwards. In any case both observers had independently come to the same idea, and while the material which Herschel supplied was of greater service for special criminal anthropology, Faulds had in his first com¬ munication grasped the investigation of the skin lineations from a higher standpoint, and had indicated the way to it through a more comprehensive plan.” With the decision of so competent a judge I have really no quarrel. A review of my Guide appeared in Nature, of date October 19th, 1905, and was signed
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