Conventional Dermatoglyphics –Revived Concept : Review

Abstract

Over the past 150 years, Dermatoglyphics has been a useful tool in understanding basic questions in biology, medicine, genetics and evolution, in addition to being the best and most widely used method for personal identification .Dermatoglyphic analysis is now beginning to prove itself as an extremely useful tool for preliminary investigations into conditions with a suspected genetic basis. In many respects, it has been used as an adjunct to other disciplines, serving as a vehicle to resolve broader biomedical problems. Thus in biology, anthropology, genetics and medicine, dermatoglyphics serves as a tool to describe, compare and contrast, and at times predict occurrences and risks for biomedical events studied by these major disciplinary areas. This review focuses briefly on the spectrum of development underlying the traditional dermatoglyphics