Direction of Ridges.
| Mickie. | Ridges longitudinal and reaching to the matrix of the nail on the second, third and fourth digits. | ||||||
| Jimmie. | Showed ridges as follows:— | ||||||
| R. hand | 1st | D | none. | L. hand | 1st | D | none. |
| 2nd | " | oblique. | 2nd | " | oblique. | ||
| 3rd | " | transverse at base of D. | 3rd | " | " | ||
| 4th | " | " " " | 4th | " | " | ||
| 5th | " | nearly longitudinal. | 5th | " | none. | ||
In these three specimens ridges were absent from the corresponding surfaces of the foot.
“The well-defined longitudinal direction of the ridges in “Mickie” is worth notice. It must be remembered in this connection that a chimpanzee walks with the extensor surfaces of the phalanges touching the ground and the digits turned inwards, so that their long axis are at right angles to the line of progression of the animal, and accordingly the ridges of this part also occupy the same relative position. There is no correlation in this instance between the act of prehension and the direction of the ridges, though it agrees closely with the general rule which obtains in so many regions, that the ridges lie at right angles to the line of incidence of the predominating pressure on the part.”
In this example of ridges developed on an abnormal situation we see what is, perhaps, an undesigned experiment as to the production of ridges by a more frequent habit of walking in captivity than would be found to occur in the wild state, for, as Lydekker says in the Royal Natural History, Vol. I, p. 27, “When the chimpanzee goes on all-fours, he generally supports himself on the backs of his closed fingers rather than on the palm of the hand (see Fig. 6 of the illustration on p. 15) and he goes sometimes on the soles of his feet and sometimes on his closed toes.”
I have underlined purposely this word “sometimes,” for in the instance I have described, not only the presence of the ridges and their direction on the backs of the fingers but their absence on the backs of the toes is significant, and I suggest that the chimpanzees examined have not sufficiently often exposed the backs of their toes to pressure and friction for the production of ridges, whereas those on the backs of the fingers have done so. Another point worth notice is that in the oldest of the three chimpanzees, “Mickie,” æt six years, the greatest number of ridges is present; in “Jimmie,” æt two-and-a-half years, they were “small and ill-defined as if in process of development,” and in “Jack,” æt twenty months they were absent. This would agree at any rate with the hypothesis that the element of time and frequent repetition of stimuli enter into the causation of aberrant ridges.
A similar condition, with aberrant papillary ridges, has been found on the digits of the hand of the orang.
On the heel of adult man ridges are found surrounding it, of the average depth of one inch from the plantar surface, and in one particular case of a woman aged forty-nine, the depth of this area on each foot measured was one and a half inches from the plantar surface.
The extensor surface, or back, of the little toe shows ridges when it is distorted by ill-fitting boots.
In man ridges frequently appear on the radial side of the back or extensor surface of the index finger to nearly the middle line of the finger, and this is often more on the right than the left hand.
CHAPTER XIX.
FLEXURES OF THE PALM AND SOLE.
Those flexures of the palmar and plantar skin which are called by Galton chiromantic creases, and said by him to be no more significant to others than palmists than the creases of old clothes, have received a remarkable amount of pseudo-scientific attention since earliest times in Chinese and Greek history. The former even added podoscopy to their chiromancy. The line of life, the line of the head, the line of the heart, the line of fortune and that of the liver, figure freely in fortune-telling of modern drawing-rooms by women who ought to be in Holloway gaol, but are not. The gipsies, their predecessors and equally honest teachers, did not employ such high-sounding words, but I believe that by observing closely the bearing, looks, dress and manner of their dupes, while pretending to study their palms, both classes of practitioners, like phrenologists, are able to tell a good deal of what their customers are, and being shrewd persons they are able to guess pretty well what they will be and will do.
I agree with Galton that these creases of hand and foot are no more significant than those of an old coat-sleeve, a pair of trousers, or boots; but they are not less significant of certain muscular habits of the wearers of those articles.[65]
The flexures in question are in line with the subjects of the two preceding chapters, and require little more description in detail than is afforded by the accompanying illustration of mammalian hands and feet.