What is fingerprinting called? Shall we roll our fingers? Interesting facts about fingerprints. Distinguish between procedural and technical methods of fixation

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What will your fingerprints say?

Dermatoglyphics is a science that studies patterns on the fingers. Its founder was the Englishman Francis Galton, who published a monograph on fingerprints at the end of the 19th century. The term "dermatoglyphics" appeared less than a century ago - in 1926 and is translated as "skin engraving".

According to prof. Bogdanova, "engraving of the skin" is our second face, which can tell about us much more than the first.

Papillary patterns on the fingertips are formed in the womb and do not disappear after death (unlike the lines of fate on the palms). They do not change during life.
This drawing corresponds to the karmic plans of a person for a specific incarnation.

Fingers are bioresonators that receive vibrations from the information field with which a person interacts and each in his own strictly defined mode. Since the energy bodies open only in the area of the fingers like a fan, then, as a result, each of the bodies gets the opportunity to directly contact the outside world. This bioenergy code of informational interaction is encrypted in the force lines of the papillary pattern. Torsion fields (information carriers) are constantly rotating, as if screwing into the human biofield along the carving of his papillary patterns.
Patterns form a person's attitude, his reactions to the world around him, the specifics of the nervous system, show some hereditary diseases, endurance, longevity, influence the choice of profession, sports inclinations, creativity, etc.

Knowledge of the morphological features of the skin is widely used today for the early diagnosis of diseases, the identification of risk groups, hereditary predisposition to diseases or longevity, the development of recommendations for a healthy lifestyle, career guidance, forensics, ethnography, etc. The earliest scientific reports on anatomical and the histological features of skin ribbing (scallops) and the depressions between them (grooves) date back to the 17th century, when drawings and descriptions of the patterns of human palms and fingers appeared in anatomical works. Advances in biology in the 19th century. contributed to the further study of skin patterns. At the beginning of the XIX century. J. Purkinė gave the first classification of skin patterns of the fingers, identified 9 main types. In the last third of the XIX century. For the first time, fingerprints were used for personal identification. The works of F. Galton played a big role here. At the beginning of the XX century. special comparative studies of the skin relief of primates and other mammals appeared. The American scientist W. Wilder in 1904 suggested using the features of comb lines and patterns on the skin of the palms and soles as an important ethnic trait. Then began the study of the embryonic development of finger patterns in connection with heredity. Many authors tried to clear palmistry from occult ideas, to get away from mysticism, to isolate positive knowledge. "Purified" palmistry was once called manual, chirosophy, palmistry, etc. The name "dermatoglyphics" was adopted in 1926 at the 42nd Congress of the American Association of Anatomists. In 1936, G. X. Cummins discovered and described the features of dermatoglyphs (skin patterns) in Down syndrome. At the end of the 1950s, when chromosomal hereditary diseases were studied, the study of correlative relationships between the characteristics of chromosome sets and skin patterns of hands began. Modern dermatoglyphics was born, which is increasingly being used in various fields of knowledge - from medicine to forensics and ethnography. Recently, fingerprinting and palmoscopy have been most widely studied and used. Even Galton, who proposed the first classification of finger patterns, identified three main types of patterns: curl (W), loop (L) and arc (A).

During the life of a person, the papillary pattern does not change, but only the thickness of the ridges and their density change. On the palm, 14 fields are distinguished, forming separate zones, with which you can determine the topography of the palmar lines.

What our fingers can tell

At all times, man wanted to know what awaits him. And there were always people who were ready to tell him this - fortune-tellers, gypsies, witches. To this day, many are skeptical about such predictions. However, modern scientists believe that there is a rational grain in fortune-telling.

Palmists were the first to predict the future of a person by skin patterns and lines on his hands. Later, criminologists became interested in drawings on their fingertips, creating the science of fingerprinting. And now the time has come for geneticists and dermatoglyphics specialists. The former use finger patterns to diagnose hereditary diseases. The latter easily determine how healthy a person is, accommodating, patient, suitable for certain types of activities.

“The palmists were not so much mistaken - the most important information about a person is really encrypted in the fingerprints,” says Tatyana Abramova, head of the laboratory of sports anthropology, morphology and genetics of the All-Russian Research Institute of Physical Culture. - Skin patterns on the fingers are finally formed at the 3-5th month of embryonic development and no longer change throughout life. The skin and the central nervous system develop at the same time and from the same embryonic bud. Therefore, finger patterns are called a marker of the features of the organization of the human brain. By fingerprints, one can not only learn about the weak points of the nervous system, but also determine the character of a person.

Of course, errors are inevitable. After all, the structure of fingerprints is extremely complex.

“At a certain stage, the idea arose to create a device that would supply the doctor with high-quality information about the dermatoglyphic type,” say the developers of such a system from Moscow State Technical University. Bauman. “The device, created by Baumanka scientists, allows you to automatically determine the slope of the elements of the skin pattern, count the number of “ridges” and make the final calculation of the parameters.”

Fingerprints can reveal dozens of different diseases that have a genetic nature. By examining the papillary lines in women planning a pregnancy, you can get an accurate prognosis of the health of the offspring. Consultation with a dermatoglyphics doctor allows not only to predict the occurrence of diseases that are inherited, but also to calculate their course.

Dermatoglyphics often say that the fingerprint is the genome turned inside out. Its structure reflects the ability of a person to adapt to the world around him. With the help of fingerprints, it is possible to predict the actions of a person in extreme situations, therefore, athletes and rescuers are sent for a consultation with dermatoglyphics.

Three main patterns

People whose main pattern of finger patterns is a loop have an explosive temperament. They cannot stand long and monotonous work, they absorb information slowly, but remember it for a long time. "Sprinter" nature makes itself felt in love. "Loops" are windy, unstable and often have several parallel connections.

Loop "Peacock eye"

Single or double folded loop

double loop

The most complex loop pattern. Its owners are just as complexly organized - quivering, vulnerable, but extremely capable people. They are mobile, active, hardy, easily adapt to any conditions, but at the same time they concentrate on their inner world. The more curls on the hand, the more complex the nature and the stronger her tendency to self-criticism.

Curl elongated

Curl - spiral

Curl - target

The “arc” person has a small life potential and not the best health. But such a person uses the forces released by nature wisely and economically. Once having found its place, the "arc" does not waste energy in search of a better share. People who have arc patterns on their fingers are extremely conservative and authoritarian, they do not fit well with people. But, if such a person has become your friend, he will go through fire and water for you. In married life, "arcs" are distinguished by exceptional devotion, they never allow themselves intrigues on the side, but demand absolute fidelity in return.

high arc

Arc with a loop inside

Standard arc

Code

And the main body. The fingerprint indicates a practical and materialistic nature. The man with the arches on the fingerprints is closed, but hardworking. These people can be hard-hearted, insensitive, skeptical and unemotional. On the index and middle fingers, arches can reveal an inability to express themselves.

B Vaulted canopy. It is distinguished by the so-called<оперным шестом>that supports the vault. People with such lines are in many ways similar to those with the main arch, but are more impulsive and emotional. The owners of such fingerprints are very high-strung, artistic and obsessive - but stubborn.

B Main (or ulna) loop. This is the most common fingerprint pattern. The base of the loop points to the thumb, and the starting point of the loop points to the striking side of the palm (percussion). People who have such fingerprints on their hands are usually soft-spoken and straightforward, with a quick, lively and flexible mind.

G Reverse (or radial) loop. These loops are similar to the main loops, but start and end in opposite directions. Their owners have the same personality characteristics as the owners of the main loops, but they are more trusting and fearless. Back loops are much less common than main loops.

D Spiral curl. People who have spiral curls in their prints are individualists with a strong and clear personality. Potentially brilliant, they work best when they keep themselves busy. They can be inflexible and take a long time to make decisions, but before that, however, they prefer to stock up on time in order to reason about business.

E Concentric curl. The fingerprint is a series of closed circles, one inside the other. This is a rarer pattern than the spiral curl, but it indicates very similar character traits. Most often it occurs on the index or ring finger. A person with 10 similar prints will be highly empowered but stressed.

J Complicated. Complex fingerprints look like two loops stretched out in opposite directions. Often they can look like diurnal Chinese yin and yang symbols. Although these people have a broad outlook and are able to sympathize with others, they can be indecisive and even clueless personalities.

peacock eye

At a glance, fingerprints<павлиний глаз>look like a loop. However, upon closer inspection, you will see a curl in the heart of the loop, like an eye on a peacock's tail. This fingerprint is very auspicious, predicting great luck for its owner and bestowing protection on him.

And tri-radius. If you are having any difficulty in distinguishing one type of fingerprint pattern from another, then take a look at the tri-radius. This print pattern is determined by the presence, absence, or number of these triangular shapes. The master print does not have a tri-radius, the loop has one, and the curl has two tri-radii.

Fingerprints and Compatibility

To see how people with fingerprints of different shapes fit together, see next. table.

Fingerprints and career

Refer to this table to decide and rate people's work abilities according to their dominant fingerprint type.

- a method of identifying a person by fingerprints (in particular, by the traces of fingers and palms of the hands), the method is based on the uniqueness and originality of the pattern of human skin.

Fingerprinting - the science of fingerprints

In science, it often happens that the long-forgotten old becomes new. Such is the fate of fingerprinting. Known in the East thousands of years ago, this science came to Europe only in the 19th century.

One of the leading experts in this field, E. Locard, considered the "father of fingerprinting" Purkinje, whose work "On the physiological study of the organs of vision and skin" dates back to 1823.

Interest in the study of finger patterns, in addition to scientific, had purely practical roots. The beginning of the nineteenth century was marked by the development of capitalism and the rapid growth of crime. Professional crime began to develop intensively, and capitalist society was looking for means of protection against it.

Passportization at that time was poorly developed, photography had not yet been invented, and colonial officials who returned to the metropolis after serving in the colonies brought with them a method of identifying a person and registering criminals by fingerprints, which was accepted in the East - fingerprinting.

In ancient China, Japan and Korea, already in the 7th century, a finger smeared with paint was applied to important documents - its imprint replaced the signature. A Chinese novel from the 12th century speaks of identifying murderers by fingerprints, but does not provide a technique for matching the fingerprints.

Fingerprinting is closely related to divination by the patterns of the skin on the hand - palmistry. In ancient times, the inhabitants of Mesopotamia and the Greeks, Romans and ancient Jews, Hindus believed in palmistry.

From them, palmistry - belief in miraculous lines in the palm of your hand - spread throughout the world, and in Christian times, palmists even found reinforcement in the biblical book of the prophet Job: “He (God) places a seal on the hand of every person to enlighten all people created by him.

Palmists distinguished three main lines on the hand - life, nature and hands - as well as the bulges of seven "hills", named after the heavenly bodies: the Sun, Venus, Mercury, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars and the Moon.

The depth and pattern of the lines predicted fate: a long line of life - a long life, a winding line of nature - polygamy, etc. By the shape of the greatest convexity of the “hill”, they found out under the sign of which luminary a person was born.

The intersections of the lines, their relative position and approach to the "hills" made it possible to recognize fate in the aggregate. Thanks to dignitary patrons, palmistry became widespread.

Caesar and Sulla, Galen and Avicenna, many kings and emperors were engaged in it. As early as the beginning of the 18th century in Germany, every university had a department of palmistry.

However, a critical attitude to all kinds of fortune-telling did not pass by palmistry - even in ancient Greece there was a proverb "The success of fortune-telling depends on the insight of a fortune-teller", and in St. from the Encyclopedia of Curiosity and Divination.

In it, the author wrote about fortune-telling: "The Greeks and Romans had the greatest favor for all these nonsense until they were enlightened by exercises in the sciences." An important trend was noticed in this book: astrology grew into astronomy, alchemy into chemistry, palmistry gave way to the scientific study of skin patterns on the hand - fingerprinting.

Fingerprinting - individuality and uniqueness

Modern fingerprinting is based on three important features of skin patterns - their individuality, immutability, and the possibility of comparison.

The main work is done by hand, and a colorless sweat-fat fingerprint remains on almost every smooth object that the criminal has touched.

Sometimes criminals use gloves, believing that their actions will leave no traces. In France, they say that a crime only begins with gloves, and ends with mittens (meaning the mittens of a convict).

In forensics classes, they often give an example of how a criminal, in order not to leave fingerprints, committed a theft in gloves, cut himself and, leaving the apartment, threw the gloves into the trash.

The search dog found the gloves, and on them the criminal. But he denied guilt. Then gloves were put on his hands, and it turned out that the cut on the glove exactly coincided with the cut on the finger of the accused. He had to confess and show the place where the stolen things were hidden: with a proper investigation, every crime is revealed.

The main property of the skin pattern on the fingers is its individuality and originality. The French criminologist Balthazar made an interesting calculation. He suggested placing an enlarged fingerprint in a hundred-cell grid (10x10), and then each cell would contain some part of the pattern: a fork facing up, a fork facing down, the beginning of a line, a line break at the top, or a line break at the bottom.

If we take only these four features of the pattern, then what is the probability of their coincidence? The scientist calculated that it would be equal to 4,100. The number of people living on earth during a century is approximately 5,000,000,000. Therefore, Balthazar wrote, to find two identical prints, it would take the number of centuries, consisting of 49 digits.

It is not yet known the exact match of the fingerprints of two different people. Note that the minimum number of pattern features was used for the calculation. If we take a larger number of them and also take into account the location of the pores on these lines (the topic of a special section of fingerprinting is poroscopy), then the probability of the coincidence of the fingerprint pattern of two people “is equal to one chance against such a number that exceeds the number of centimeters separating the Earth from the most distant of stars."

Calculations according to the Balthazar system show that the probability of finding two matching features appears when considering 16 fingerprints. However, to get three matches, 64 prints are needed, for four matches, 266 prints, etc.

The figures obtained from these calculations are unnecessarily large. In practice, a study of fingerprints of a small group of people is carried out. Therefore, in different countries, for identification of a person by fingerprint, it is considered sufficient to match from 8-9 to 12-14 features of the pattern.

Now the individuality of the skin pattern on each finger is strictly proven, but relatively recently this fact was in doubt. The well-known French criminologist Bertillon, whose authority was indisputable in his country, did not believe in fingerprinting and zealously defended the description and anthropometry invented by himself.

But it was fingerprinting that played a cruel joke on him. On August 21, 1911, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa (Gioconda) was stolen from the Louvre. The Minister of the Interior, the Attorney General, the President of the Police and Bertillon arrived at the scene of the crime.

It was established that the perpetrator removed the painting from the wall in Carré's salon, carried it out onto a side staircase, took it out of the frame and carried it away. The frame remained in place, and Bertillon found a fingerprint on the glass. Further than this, the investigation did not advance, and nothing was known about the picture for more than two years. On December 2, 1913, a certain Leonard (his real name was Vincenzo Perrugia) offered the Florentine antiquarian Alfredo Henry to buy Mona Lisa and came with the painting himself.

Perrugia was arrested, he told how he stole the painting. A comparison of his fingerprints with the print found by Bertillon confirmed that it was he who stole the painting. And then it turned out that Perrugia had previously been repeatedly detained by the Paris police, Bertillon's file cabinet had his fingerprints. As the newspapers of Paris wrote at that time, "the search for the criminal took two years, while it could be found in two hours." This episode undermined faith in the genius of Bertillon.

property of skin patterns

The second remarkable property of skin patterns on the fingers is their immutability. The pattern appears in an unborn baby and remains unchanged for life. For example, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Halle G. Welker made his fingerprints in 1856. After 41 years, he repeated the experiment again, and ... as a result, the prints were indistinguishable.

The stability of the skin pattern was tested many times: criminalists scalded their fingers with boiling water, burned the skin on fire, poisoned it with strong acids. But the young skin again invariably repeated the old pattern.

Now, everywhere, every detainee on suspicion of committing a serious crime is taking prints of a skin pattern and in a special laboratory they are compared with fingerprints in a file cabinet kept by the authorities fighting crime. If a person was previously convicted, then in the file cabinet, in addition to the card with his prints, there is an indication of when and for what he was prosecuted.

Well, what if unknown fingerprints are found at the scene? Such prints can be fuzzy, incomplete, and, most importantly, they are not always detectable. And, nevertheless, the imprint substance has sufficient stability. It has a very complex composition containing eleven components.

Their basis is fatty acids (formic, acetic, propionic, butyric, valeric and others). Such a colorless trace is very persistent (there is a known case of fingerprints on glass fragments that have been in a fire), it can be detected using coloring chemicals and various powders.

However, the powder method is mainly used to detect fresh prints. In the event that the fingerprint dries up, chemical reagents are used for the “old” prints - fumigation with iodine vapor or exposure to other chemical reagents. Even a few months after its appearance, an invisible imprint can be detected.

Here is the first published case of a criminal being convicted by a fingerprint. At the end of the last century in Tokyo, in the Zukiya hospital, the Scottish doctor Henry Foulds worked. Near Fulds' house, a thief climbed over a whitewashed fence. He left his fingerprints smeared with soot on the fence. While Fulds was studying the thief's fingerprints (Fulds had been interested in them for a long time), it became known that the criminal was detained.

The doctor compared the prints on the fence with the pattern of the detainee's skin and came to the conclusion that this was not the same person. A few days later, another suspect was arrested. Fulds compared the fingerprints again - they matched exactly. In October 1880, the English journal Nature published an article by Foulds on this and other uses of fingerprints in the police service.

Fingerprint registration systems in fingerprinting

All countries now have special file cabinets that store the fingerprints of registered criminals and unidentified fingerprints found at the crime scene. To facilitate the search for the desired prints, special digital registration systems have been created.

Currently, more than thirty registration systems are successfully used. But of greatest interest is the Galton-Henry system, which is used in our country in an improved form.

According to this system, the formula of skin patterns on the fingers consists of the main and additional parts. All ten fingers are assigned certain numbers, and depending on the pattern, a certain number is entered in the main part of the formula (only curlic patterns are taken into account in the main part).

All ten fingers are paired; the digits of even fingers are entered into the numerator of the formula, and the digits of odd fingers into the denominator. In the card file, the formulas are arranged according to the increasing values of the numerator of the formula, and within the group of cards with the same numerators, according to the increasing values of the denominator.

The trouble is that the formula takes into account only group characteristics, and the individuality of prints is manifested in a combination of smaller features. Therefore, there are many cards with the same formulas in the card files. The final conclusion about the individuality of fingerprints is made by experts who no longer compare formulas, but directly fingerprints.

How to reduce search time? Soviet criminologists and engineers created one of the first automated search systems. For identification, not the entire skin pattern on the nail phalanx of the finger was used, but only the locations of characteristic features - signs (it has been proven that their location in each print is individual).

Dots were placed at the location of the signs of each fingerprint, and then the prints were photographed on film. Now, when it was necessary to establish who owns the print, it was encoded using the same system and placed on the screen panel. Photocells were inserted into the locations of the signs, and a tape with captured and marked prints was projected onto such a screen through a movie camera.

The film camera automatically stopped when the location of the dots on the print and the photocells on the screen coincided. Without going into technical details, it must be said that such an apparatus made it possible to compare 30,000 prints in five minutes, and this is far from the limit of the apparatus's speed. Work is slowed down by manual coding and the difference in print sizes.

Application of fingerprinting

Fingerprints are not only forensic scientists. For example, in 1970, a certain Swedish archaeologist announced in the press his intention to study the settlement of ancient tribes in Greece by the fingerprints of potters on the handles of ancient dishes. He believed that members of the same tribe should have similar types of patterns, and, using the method of determining the age of pottery, he was going to determine which tribes inhabited ancient Greece and at what time.

Without prejudice to the results of the study, we can say that there is a certain reason for it - in 9 cases out of 10, the patterns on the fingers of the same name on the right and left hands belong to the same type and are very similar. This indicates the biological nature of the skin pattern and suggests the similarity of the fingerprints of relatives.

Thus, the Swedish researcher Christina Benevi proposed to compare not the patterns directly, but their numerical expressions using a standard formula and received results confirming the similarity of the fingerprints of relatives. Even a judicial precedent is known - the court of the city of Vienna in 1927 sentenced one citizen to pay alimony in a paternity suit based on a study of the similarity of the skin patterns of the fingers of the child and the alleged father.

However, this method has not received further development. Modern studies refrain from categorical conclusions about the heredity of fingerprints and note only their high similarity in identical twins and in families where dementia is inherited.

There are methods of approximate sex and age determination by fingerprints. Age is determined by the number of papillary lines per unit of measurement (5 millimeters). So, in young children, this unit has 15-18 lines, and in twenty-year-olds - 10 lines. There is also a flattening of the lines, wrinkles and folds of the skin in the elderly.

Determination of gender by fingerprints does not have an established methodology. At the same time, E. Lokar wrote that "fingerprints of women are sometimes very similar to the prints of young men with gentle hands, but every experienced laboratory assistant will distinguish them, although he uses more intuition than scientific methods."

As you can see, different areas of knowledge are interested in fingerprints, but for forensics they are the most important, because they provide a reliable method of identifying a person.

PhD in Law V. Gerasimov

According to prof. Bogdanova, "engraving of the skin" is our second face, which can tell about us much more than the first.

Papillary patterns on the fingertips are formed in the womb and do not disappear after death (unlike the lines of fate on the palms). They do not change during life.

This drawing corresponds to the karmic plans of a person for a specific incarnation.

What our fingers can tell

“The palmists were not so wrong - the most important information about a person is really encrypted in the fingerprints,” says Tatyana Abramova, head of the laboratory of sports anthropology, morphology and genetics of the All-Russian Research Institute of Physical Culture. - Skin patterns on the fingers are finally formed at the 3-5th month of embryonic development and no longer change throughout life. The skin and the central nervous system develop at the same time and from the same embryonic bud. Therefore, finger patterns are called a marker of the features of the organization of the human brain. By fingerprints, one can not only learn about the weak points of the nervous system, but also determine the character of a person.

Of course, errors are inevitable. After all, the structure of fingerprints is extremely complex.

“At a certain stage, the idea arose to create a device that would supply the doctor with high-quality information about the dermatoglyphic type,” say the developers of such a system from the Moscow State Technical University. Bauman. “The device, created by Baumanka scientists, allows you to automatically determine the slope of the elements of the skin pattern, count the number of “ridges” and make the final calculation of the parameters.”

Loop "Peacock eye"

Single or double folded loop

double loop

Curl elongated

Curl - spiral

Curl - target

high arc

Arc with a loop inside

Standard arc

Code

And the main body. The fingerprint indicates a practical and materialistic nature. The man with the arches on the fingerprints is closed, but hardworking. These people can be hard-hearted, insensitive, skeptical and unemotional. On the index and middle fingers, arches can reveal an inability to express themselves.

B Vaulted canopy. It is distinguished by the so-called<оперным шестом>that supports the vault. People with such lines are in many ways similar to those with the main arch, but are more impulsive and emotional. The owners of such fingerprints are very high-strung, artistic and obsessive - but stubborn.

The loop

B Main (or ulna) loop. This is the most common fingerprint pattern. The base of the loop points to the thumb, and the starting point of the loop points to the striking side of the palm (percussion). People who have such fingerprints on their hands are usually soft-spoken and straightforward, with a quick, lively and flexible mind.

G Reverse (or radial) loop. These loops are similar to the main loops, but start and end in opposite directions. Their owners have the same personality characteristics as the owners of the main loops, but they are more trusting and fearless. Back loops are much less common than main loops.

Curl

D Spiral curl. People who have spiral curls in their prints are individualists with a strong and clear personality. Potentially brilliant, they work best when they keep themselves busy. They can be inflexible and take a long time to make decisions, but before that, however, they prefer to stock up on time in order to reason about business.

E Concentric curl. The fingerprint is a series of closed circles, one inside the other. This is a rarer pattern than the spiral curl, but it indicates very similar character traits. Most often it occurs on the index or ring finger. A person with 10 similar prints will be highly empowered but stressed.

J Complicated. Complex fingerprints look like two loops stretched out in opposite directions. Often they can look like diurnal Chinese yin and yang symbols. Although these people have a broad outlook and are able to sympathize with others, they can be indecisive and even clueless personalities.

peacock eye

And tri-radius. If you are having any difficulty in distinguishing one type of fingerprint pattern from another, then take a look at the tri-radius. This print pattern is determined by the presence, absence, or number of these triangular shapes. The master print does not have a tri-radius, the loop has one, and the curl has two tri-radii.

Fingerprints and Compatibility

To see how people with fingerprints of different shapes fit together, see next. table.

Fingerprints and career

Refer to this table to decide and rate people's work abilities according to their dominant fingerprint type.

Live in harmony with the Universe, using all the opportunities given to you! Asto-numerological map - an individual analysis of all the qualities given to you from birth.

One way or another, a person leaves his mark wherever it happens: particles of skin, hair, saliva. And the cells of the epidermis constantly, albeit in small quantities, secrete a secret: sweat and fat. It is at their expense that fingerprints appear on all affected objects. And their pattern is unique for each person. So, where to do fingerprinting, and why might it come in handy?

Essence

Fingerprinting is a science that studies papillary patterns, that is, those lines on the skin that every person has on their fingertips. In addition, this is the name of the process of establishing the identity of the imprints of these lines. The fact is that they are unique to each person and remain on everything that a person touches. That is why it is an excellent method of identifying a person, simple and effective enough to be used all over the world.

Historical digression

Initially, the concept of fingerprinting as a section of traceology was proposed by the Argentine doctor F. Latzina in 1894. Prior to this, the not entirely successful term "icnaphalangometry" was used. Then the method of taking fingerprints and their use in forensics experienced a real boom. The scientific justification for this was given by a famous English researcher, and his idea was developed and widely put into practice for the first time by Juan Vuchetich. He developed a classification of prints, and later - a special fingerprint registration system in some South American countries. Thus, it became possible to identify people by the traces of papillary drawings - one of the main tools of modern forensic science.

It is difficult to say which of the scientists mentioned gave the greatest impetus to such a science as fingerprinting. This is a question that often causes a lot of controversy, since Galton proved that the coincidence of fingerprints in different people is mathematically impossible, and Vuchetich greatly facilitated the very problem of identification. Most likely, in fact, it was the combination of these achievements that played the main role.

Genetic fingerprinting

If normal refers to fingerprinting, then what is used here? Obviously DNA testing. It is a much thinner and more precise instrument. If ordinary fingerprinting can allow some error, then errors are practically excluded here, since the DNA of each person is unique. The genotyping method was developed in 1984 by a group of scientists led by Alex Jeffres. It gained notoriety as it was used in some notorious criminal cases, as well as in the 1995 incident involving football player O. J. Simpson.

Methodology

This method of identifying a person became possible due to the special structure of human DNA. The fact is that approximately 95% of the molecules are non-coding, that is, they do not carry genetic information, but contain repeating sequences that can be scattered far from each other or located nearby. It is in the latter case that they are called satellites. The number of repetitions in them can be very different, and if you take different people, it is guaranteed not to match.

There are also clusters in which the number of sequences is very small - they are called mini-satellites. And in a certain place in the DNA of each person there are two such structures, one from each parent. Genetic fingerprinting is the analysis of these mini-satellites. Thanks to it, it is possible to identify with a sufficiently high accuracy the person to whom the DNA belongs. And today this technique plays the same role as fingerprints once did. But if the latter can be prudently erased by a criminal, then it is practically impossible not to leave any physical traces of his stay at all, that is, particles of skin, blood, saliva, hair, etc.

Accuracy

Genetic fingerprinting is quite reliable, that is, subject to certain standards, several test results obtained by different laboratories will not differ. Work is currently underway on the development of certain rules common to all studies of this type.

As far as accuracy is concerned, the probability of matching the analyzed parts of DNA in different people is vanishingly small. It is worth saying that the chances of this are higher when it comes to their results will be similar in any case. In addition, the quality of the material significantly affects the accuracy of genotyping. It is one thing to undergo fingerprinting, that is, to take an analysis voluntarily, and quite another to try to isolate DNA from drops of dried blood or saliva.

Modern application

There is a small circle of situations in which such a procedure can be useful. First of all, this is the area of crimes. The guilt of a suspect can be proven, for example, if pieces of skin are found under the victim's nails that match his DNA. For forensic scientists, genetic fingerprinting is a real find to help identify

Another number of situations that require the compilation of DNA profiles are disputes about paternity and inheritance. In the last few decades, such analyzes have become quite accessible and popular.

Among other things, genotyping is used by anthropologists to trace the history and relationship of certain peoples. Thanks to DNA analysis, curious discoveries and assumptions have been made.

Finally, this technique is used in animal husbandry to confirm breed purity or control genetic diversity.

Where and how to do it?

Fingerprinting is easy. This is a very simple and completely painless procedure. To begin with, the fingers are coated with a special dye, and then prints are made on paper. However, in many institutions, a simple computer scan is carried out - this allows you to get rid of the difficulties of subsequent digitization.

Since 2015, it is necessary to go through this procedure when obtaining a new generation passport in the Russian Federation. In addition, when applying for, for example, a UK visa, fingerprinting is also required. But you can do this voluntarily - just contact the nearest branch of the FMS.

If the question is where to undergo DNA fingerprinting, then here the path lies in specialized medical organizations. As the cost of this test decreases and the equipment needed to conduct it becomes more widespread, there are more and more such institutions. This is, for example, the Center for Molecular Genetics, where the result can be obtained within 10-20 thousand rubles, or research institutes where this analysis will cost about the same amount. The material is usually blood or buccal epithelium (a swab taken from the inside of the cheek). Obviously, this procedure is also harmless and virtually painless.

Ethical Issues

A number of lawyers believe that the creation of a system containing fingerprints or genetic material not only of criminals, but also of ordinary law-abiding citizens, is contrary to basic human rights when it comes to coercion to undergo these procedures. Basically, fears are caused by a possible hacking of a single database, which will entail unauthorized access to confidential information, because genetic fingerprinting is actually a DNA passport, and such information simply should not be in the public domain.

In addition, the collection and constant updating of such a database is a very expensive pleasure, and the costs, obviously, will fall on the shoulders of taxpayers. As world and Russian practice shows, it makes sense to limit the circle of persons for whom fingerprinting will become mandatory, the military, employees of law enforcement agencies, civil servants and, of course, those convicted or serving an administrative arrest. For the rest, the procedure for fingerprinting or gene material donation should be strictly voluntary.

"Russian Planet" recalls how fingerprints began to be used for personal identification

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Olga Kuzmenko

On July 28, 1858, William Herschel, who worked in the British administration in Bengal, for the first time demanded that his Indian counterparties seal contracts with a fingerprint. From that moment, the rapid development of fingerprinting began, which is now one of the most important practices in forensic science.

Herschel is commonly referred to as the father of fingerprinting, although this is not entirely true. The first proposal to use fingerprints to identify criminals came to the British police as early as 1840. This became known only in December 2012. Then documents on the murder of Lord William Russell were put up at Sotheby's auction. The body of the politician was found in bed with his throat cut on the night of May 5, 1840. This incident was widely reported in the press. After reading about the numerous bloody prints on the sheet, the surgeon from In the village of Norfolk, Robert Blake Overton wrote a letter to the nephew of the murdered man, in which he explained how to use these traces left by the killer in the interests of the investigation.

“Few people know that each individual person has a special pattern on the surface of the skin. I strongly recommend that the suspect be fingerprinted and compared with the marks left on the sheets and pillows,” Overton wrote to future Prime Minister Lord John Russell. For clarity, the message contained several ink fingerprints of the doctor himself.

The addressee handed over the letter to Scotland Yard, but Overton's advice did not help solve the case. On the back of the envelope, the police left a note "there were no such traces." The letter was attached to the investigative materials and was lost among hundreds of papers related to the investigation. No one guessed to apply the described method of identifying a criminal to search for other suspects, and fingerprinting had to wait in the wings.

Treaty of 1858 with the imprint of Rajyadhar Konai. Source: jurukunci.net

An English official, William Herschel, became an active fingerprint collector in the late 1850s, but he was driven not by criminal, but by commercial interest. Herschel worked for a long time in Bengal, where he had to conclude contracts with local entrepreneurs. But for the Indians, the signature meant nothing, and leaving their autograph on the document, they did not feel bound by any obligations. The British official found a way out of the situation: in addition to signing, his counterparties began to leave their fingerprints on paper, which was sacred for the local population and guaranteed the fulfillment of the contract. Probably the first such person was Rajyadhar Konai, on July 28, 1858, who sealed with his fingerprint an agreement on the supply of materials to the authorities for the construction of the road.

Studying the collected prints, Herschel came to the conclusion that two different people cannot have identical prints. He took advantage of this observation when paying salaries to soldiers of the British Indian Army. Sepoys took advantage of the fact that it was difficult for a European to identify them both by appearance and by name, and strove to get money several times. To prevent fraud, Herschel required Indian soldiers to leave fingerprints on the payroll and on receipts, gaining the ability to identify the recipient.

After some time, they put things in order in one of the local prisons in a similar way, where the criminals also impersonated others and were released.

But when, in 1877, Herschel proposed the introduction of fingerprinting in all prisons in Bengal, his advice was not heeded. Over 20 years of research, the official managed to establish that with age, the papillary pattern on a person's fingers does not change. Returning to England, Herschel presented the results of his observations in The origin of fingerprints, which for a long time remained without attention.

Regardless of Herschel, the Scottish physician Henry Faulds, who had been working in Japan since 1873, came to the conclusion about the uniqueness of the pattern on the fingers. Fingerprints became the subject of his interest when he discovered several such marks on clay shards and began to study them.

Henry Foldc. Photo: thumbrule.vn

Soon, an unidentified person made his way into his hospital, and the police arrested one of the doctor's employees, whom Faulds believed was innocent. To clear him of charges, the doctor compared his fingerprints with those left at the crime scene. When they didn't match, he convinced the police to release the suspect. Faulds studied papillary lines for two years, and in 1880 published his findings in the journal Nature. An important discovery of the doctor was that, thanks to the sweat glands, traces of the touch of a person's hands remain even without applying paint to the fingertips.

In an effort to popularize the idea of fingerprint identification, Faulds turned to naturalist Charles Darwin for help. The creator of the theory of evolution refused to engage in this project and handed it over to his relative Francis Galton, who headed the Anthropological Society of London. The authoritative scientist did not immediately become interested in the problem, but when he began to study it, he no longer referred to Faulds.

Galton presented the results of his scientific research in three monographs. He owns the first attempts to classify papillary lines, which he divided into arcs, loops and whorls. An anthropologist has calculated the probability of matching two people's prints: it could happen in one case in 64 billion. The expediency of using fingerprinting in judicial practice has become obvious.

In the early 1890s, the Argentinean anthropologist Juan Vucetich became acquainted with the work of Galton, the result of which was a ten-finger classification of fingerprints. In Argentina, the first examination of his method was carried out in 1892, exposing Francisco Royas from Nicogea in the murder of his children. The Vuchetich method was first known only in the countries of South America.

In 1897, the colonialists in India finally recognized that when registering criminals, they should be fingerprinted, and the Fingerprint Bureau was established in Calcutta. In the UK and the USA, such institutions began to appear already at the beginning of the 20th century, and in less than 15 years, fingerprinting has become the most important way to identify criminals.