Biometrics and Palmistry: The UCL Story

In her new book Decoding the Hand, Alison Bashford unpacks the strange history of palmistry and biometrics, from occult physicians to the foundations of modern science and medicine. In this talk, she explores the central place of UCL-associated research in this unexpected strand of medical history and of somatic diagnostics. Galton’s fingerprint studies are well known; key to the history of biometric states. Bashford shows that he took palm prints too, explains why, and explores where this peculiar inquiry came from, and went to in a UCL line of twentieth century Galton Professors of Eugenics and Genetics. This is part of a larger history of medical semiotics, of bio-colonialism and its discontents, and of medical genetics as hand-based biomarkers were correlated to various syndromes and to chromosomal abnormalities. Just why was distinguished geneticist, psychiatrist, and UCL Galton professor Lionel Penrose’s final publication on fingerprints and palmistry, and published in the The Lancet (no less)?

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The UCL Health Humanities Centre draws together staff from different disciplines, departments and faculties engaged in teaching and research on matters relating to health, illness and well-being.

Image: Fingerprints. Titlepage Galton's book on fingerprints. 1892. © 2013, UCL Creative Media Services