Index finger

“ The eye-lid should be over-turned with the thumb and the index finger and should be very carefully fomented with a piece of linen soaked in lukewarm water and squeezed. The eye-lid should be covered with a piece of linen and over-turned with the thumb and the index finger at the time to guard against its movement and enclosing. ”

“ Thus the finger on the axis of the dial A2 first encounters the claw upon B2, and drives it through one tooth immediately forwards; the finger on the axis of B2 encounters the claw upon C2 and drives it through one tooth; the action of the finger on C2 on the claw on D2 next succeeds, and so on. Thus, while the finger on B2 acts on C2, and causes the division from 9 to 0 to pass under the index, the thumb on C2 at the same instant acts on the trigger, and detaches the carrying claw on D2, which is forthwith encountered by the carrying finger on C2, and, driven forward one tooth. ”

“ When a body is found, the hands usually will be tightly clenched. The first problem will be to straighten the fingers. If rigor mortis has set in and an effort to straighten the fingers as previously explained fails, the difficulty can be overcome easily. Using a scalpel, make a deep cut at the second joint on the inner side of each of the four fingers. They can now be straightened with the application of force (fig. 393) . The thumb, if it is cramped or bent, can generally be straightened by making a deep cut between the thumb and the index finger. ”

“ After the finger is inked, the square is rolled around the finger without letting it slip. Extreme caution should be exercised to see that each square bears the correct fingerprint impression. After all the inked impressions are properly taken, the ten squares bearing the impressions are pasted or stapled to a standard fingerprint card in their proper positions, i.e., right thumb, right index, right middle, etc. ”

“ Showing seal ring on index finger, two rings on third finger, and three on little finger of left hand
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
MAN AND WOMAN AT A CASEMENT
The woman wears three rings (sapphire, ruby and some other stone) on the index of right hand, and two on the middle finger of this hand, one of them on the second joint. The young man has a large oval topaz on the little finger of his left hand. ”

“ The thumb of his left hand under her wrist, the fingers extended above it; the thumb of his right hand resting on the thumb of the left, the fingers lightly resting on the fingers of the left hand. As soon as the curtain was fastened he extended the fourth and index fingers of the left hand to the fullest extent and pressed hard upon the lady’s arm, relaxing at the same time the pressure of his second and third fingers. This movement exactly simulates the grasp of two hands, and enables the medium to take away his right hand altogether. ”

“ The whole strain of the recognition lies on the expert, as the strain of the primary classification of records had lain upon him at the time they were being made. Of course, more than one expert might be needed.
It will be noticed, perhaps, that the syllable bra occurs twice on the same hand register. It by no means follows that the finger-print represented by the second bra is very like that of the first one. In the same way, none of the patterns indicated by bra in the cards of similar syllabic index may much resemble the others, even broadly. ”

“ The digits most frequently involved are the middle finger, the ring finger, and the thumb, while the index and little fingers are relatively free, and the right side is more often affected than the left. It is rather more common in women than in men (in the proportion of three to two) ; and much more frequent in adults than in children, but may appear at all ages. The etiology is ill understood. In many cases an important influence, direct or remote, has been assigned to rheumatism ”

“ An index to each set of finger marks made by the same person, is needful in almost every kind of inquiry, whether it be for descriptive purposes, for investigations into race and heredity, or into questions of symmetry and correlation. It is essential to possess an index to the finger marks of known criminals before the method of finger prints can be utilised as an organised means of detection. ”

“ If a subject has more than 10 fingers, as occasionally happens, the thumbs and the next 4 fingers to them should be printed, and any fingers left over should be printed on the other side of the card with a notation made to the effect that they are extra fingers. When a person with more than 10 fingers has an intentional amputation performed, it is invariably the extra finger on the little finger side which is amputated. ”

“ How can we hope to interpret the secrets of the Master-workers in Music unless we ourselves are in tune? Take stock of yourself each day and see if you are really living.
The new exercise this week is for strengthening the fingers as well as for limbering up stiff joints. Around each of the finger joints, there are transverse ligaments—bands of muscle which hold the lengthwise finger muscles in place and bind them to the bones.
Unless one is using his fingers in a special and unordinary way, these ligaments become stiff and inflexible, so that the movement of the fingers is greatly hindered. ”

“ You should place your fingers and thumb on five consecutive white keys, and, keeping the thumb, first, second, and fourth finger down, repeatedly strike the note that is under the third finger. If this monotonous exercise is persevered in, the third finger will gain strength. ”

“ The Eastern brokers have used for ages, and still use, the method of secretly indicating numbers to one another in bargaining, ‘by snipping fingers under a cloth.’ ‘Every joynt and every finger hath his signification,’ as an old traveller says, and the system seems a more or less artificial development of ordinary finger-counting, the thumb and little finger stretched out, and the other fingers closed, standing for 6 or 60, the addition of the fourth finger making 7 or 70, and so on. ”

“ It is not sufficient to play the ordinary finger-exercises and scales. As has been shown in the opening chapters, and in the anatomical representations of the hand, all the fingers are not equally strong; for instance, the 4th and 5th fingers are, by nature, much weaker than the others, and it is necessary to remedy this inequality. ”

“ The thumb is in a different plane from the fingers; when the hand is laid flat on any surface—as this window-pane, for instance—the palmar surfaces of the fingers touch it, whereas it is the side of the thumb which comes in contact and not the palmar surface. But in this”—he tapped the framed glass with his finger—“the prints show the palmar surfaces of all the five digits in contact at once, which is an impossibility. Just try to put your own thumb in that position and you will see that it is so.” ”

“ The story of the Nail reaches back to the early history of weights and measures and is of philological as well as metrological interest. The half-cubit or span, the common handy measure in most parts of the world, is of 12 digits, while the foot is 16 digits and is still so divided in Italy and other southern countries. The digit is not only a middle-finger breadth, it is also a thumb-nail breadth ”

“ The third and fourth digits are the longest; the second and fifth are of equal length; the thumb is the shortest; it does not touch the ground, and does not even reach the articulation of the metacarpal bone and first phalanx of the second finger. ”

“ Similar lines are found in apes. There are general patterns of lineations all over the palmar surface of the hands and the plantar surface of the feet which are of some interest, but the chief practical concern of most students in this new field is with certain points where patterns run into forms of great complexity, especially in the palmar skin covering the last joint of each finger. It is not common to find either in pots or pictures those patterns printed clearly, but the creases dear to the palmister are frequently enough shown. ”

“ And now let us return to the hand with the reel of cotton.
Having roughly sketched the forefinger, the thumb, and the general proportions of the wrist and hand, we should then pay a little more attention to the hand itself, the back of which lies like a flat upright line breaking into small indications of the second or third knuckle.The first knuckle is slightly indented, and the root of the first finger descends in a firm swelling curve to the folded muscle of the thumb. ”

“ The most common association where more than one digit was affected was that of the ring and little fingers; when a single finger was attacked, it was most frequently the fourth. The flexion involved in almost equal proportions the metacarpo-phalangeal joint alone, and this together with the first inter-phalangeal joint. In four cases the first inter-phalangeal joint was contracted, while the metacarpo-phalangeal articulation was free, and in one case the distal joint alone was flexed, although the band extended from the palm. ”

“ It will be shown how systems of parallel ridges sweep in bold curves across the palmar surface [Pg 6] of the hand, and how, whenever the boundaries of two systems diverge, the interspace is filled up by a compact little system of its own, variously curved or whorled, having a fictitious resemblance to an eddy between two currents. An interspace of this kind is found in the bulb of each finger. The ridges run in parallel lines across the finger, up to its last joint, beyond which the insertion of the finger-nail causes a compression of the ridges on either side ”

“ To impress simultaneously the fore, middle, and ring-fingers of the right hand ought, however, to be better, the trouble being no greater, while three prints are obviously more effective than two, especially for an off-hand comparison. Moreover, the patterns on the ring-finger are much more variable than those on the middle finger. Much as rolled impressions are to be preferred for minute and exhaustive comparisons, they would probably be inconvenient for purposes of registration or attestation. ”

“ Place the thumb of each hand on one side, and the four fingers very firmly fixed on the other side of the staff; raise one finger as high as possible, and let it fall down vigorously, like a hammer, 20 times in succession, while the three remaining fingers, stretched out from one another, like claws, remain immoveable. In the same way exercise the other fingers; firmly, slowly, vigorously, and immediately after the cylinder exercises just described. ”

“ In like manner, if we keep the compass-points one or two centimetres apart, and draw them down the forearm over the wrist and palm, finally drawing one along one finger, the other along its neighbor, the appearance will be that of a single line, soon breaking into two, which become more widely separated below the wrist, to contract again in the palm, and finally diverge rapidly again towards the finger-tips. ”

“ Continued practice with the thumb will form two grooves on the under side of the thumb, exactly the width of the strings apart; when this comes about, no inconvenience will be experienced either in rapidly sliding along the strings, or in putting on sufficient pressure. A common experience with students first learning thumb positions, is the feeling that the fingers are too long. To remedy this and also to gain sufficient weight on the fingers, some young players will allow the knuckles to protrude and the finger joints to bend inwards. ”

“ Another most effective mode of stretching and loosening the tendons and ligaments which encompass the large middle-hand bones, or “knuckles,” may be performed as follows:
Place the forefinger of each hand, up to the middle joint, firmly on the table, and in that position press it up and down with a certain degree of force, for a few seconds; then withdraw it, and apply the next finger in a precisely similar manner; then the two other fingers in succession, each finger remaining on the table alone, unaccompanied by any other. ”

“ It is characterised by persistent flexion of one or more digits, without any articular abnormality, and unassociated with spasm or paralysis, but the contraction is of a different kind from that found in hammer finger and hammer toe. The degree of flexion varies with the position of the hand, and when the wrist [58] is strongly bent forwards the fingers may be extended, perhaps completely, but extension of the wrist is accompanied by a return of the contraction, the degree of which increases progressively as the wrist extension is carried nearer to its limit. ”

“ A large number of Japanese children, and also some thirty-five or more children of European parentage, in ages from five to ten, were minutely examined time after time during a period of two years—some of them again at longer intervals—without a single variation being detected. The lines and patterns in the fingers of growing children broaden out as the infant grows, but the ideal form—so to speak—of the pattern itself, retains full sway. To grasp this conception clearly is almost the whole science of finger-print identification. ”