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. If the ignorant
prejudice against a complete study of the hand were overcome, the police
would be greatly assisted by studying the lines of the palm, and
acquiring a knowledge of what these lines mean, especially as regards
mentality and the inclination of the brain in one direction or another.

It is a well-known fact that, even if the skin be burned off the hands or
removed by an acid, in a short time the lines will reappear exactly as
they were before, and the same happens to the ridges or "spirals" in the
skin of the inside tips of the fingers and thumb.

The scientific use of such a study could also be made invaluable in
foreseeing tendencies towards insanity, etc.

Sir Thomas Browne, in his _Religio Medici_, after referring to
Physiognomy, says:

"Now there are besides these characters in our faces certain
mystical figures in our hands, which I dare not call mer