faxuany 18, 1917] NATURE 389 question of what degree of evidence a single Shurdge may give of the identity of some sup. ince wi comet having 2 evn Si Wl, in is vevow ofthe history of discovery, has not made any reference to my Tit sibutons "on. the subject” “He, however, did aor a wire falc in four carne Pore ae Pikays and tor that git granted T "eae nian io save to thank you {or your courtesy in forwarding 2 Sopy of Mr. Faulde’s leter to you, andy in come co with your request, 1 subenit the. following ris. ly point I fel bound eo note 1 Pave nok mentioned Bis amg in.my ey of Origin of Finger Epnting.™ Me. Faulds's own nt at his cds “has "Been 10. “flly" placed pre’ the public. m his. Teters to. you from pan, of October, 1880, and later that Think T was inv keoping t that period of history, twenty years beck than his, which lay within my own know his complaint i courtesy, and it is only his position as a pro- 4 man of selence that justifies me ia correcting him. ‘sume. purpose. asf craps were badly smudged bat the sail furrows the palm. were exquisite, and moved me to take te: ons than his from y own fingers. a8 1 Kthe reader on the same. page, only Mr. Faulds ee Thue nt the spit of sence, 7 rill now, with your permission, show reason why ‘ hive, intodiced Mr. Faulds's 1880 aonounced that in the pre: yar sean wa reef he esl finger impressions oa pottery, and that he had to the concuson, by igo! ed patent exper. pt, that Bngerpeinte, were auffiiculy personal rn to supply'a longwanted metho of scientific Biifcation, winch should enable us to fx his cxime ‘any offender who left Snger-marko behind Rim, ‘equally well to the suapocted entity of fombeent person, (For all which 1 gave him, and T "hyo, the evedit ve for a conception so diferent imine.) "But be went on to say "There can peverainchangeable finger furrows of important ra Sopelanne Fie paee ee atau eset aay loge int as il anf Moe we cd Set ay ty eae Ss 2a kee FOE Se Ny dri crt dt cota ld, ut the nearest approach T tract from No.. 2464, VOL. 98] fut his present letter breaks through all bounds of | Mno doubt of the advantage of having a copy of the | ‘MY challenge did. oblige him to | “The mode 1 took to test whether the ridges ever shifted their situation or hanged thet form was by Shaving away their elevations, having frst taken Careful imprints of the patterns. After. the skin grew ip again, fresh ‘imprints were taken and ‘compared | sth the oid ones, s - but in many hundreds of eases, tested. thus thres or four times, not one solitary ‘cxample of a variation in pattern was detected” His feturn 1 England. broke. the farther investiga: Son. He goes tye fim conviction, however, was established in my mind, which nothing hag occured, to change, that” skin furrows for the purposes of identfcation ‘are invariable, throughout | tee" | ("This quotation i his atest statement of his authority tbat fe noes to be read with an extract from a previo letter of hig, dated June 5, 1909, in which he says :— “One of my eariest experiments was to shave off the ridges of the finger-tipe with razors; the pattern on the sein wae reproduon with quite unvarring fidelity | unless part of the true (deep) skin was remoted.” take it that this is the only foundation he has for hig claim ‘to have lenown the law of persistency in 1880. I leave it to. men of scence to judge whether | His taperiments suficed to prove peritency of 2 Ringer pattern for W. Hensext: ‘Warkeld | the Date of Introduction of the Term Metabolic.” “a oncae and the term "meiablinm” ave played such a prominent part in the development of pysio- | fogieal Science that it should be intresting t¢ Know 3p whom and wens dh Term was fre wend. Prot, yyiss, In his "Principles of General. Physiology (i315, b. 263), says. that, 80 far as be. can' discover, ‘a was frat Used by Sir Michael Foster his." Textbook of “Phi eho frst edition of Which Was published in iis. "ie seems, however, that | there i'l earfer use ofthe term in the wiangs of fo, less. well own an investigator than Theodore | Schwann, esunclator of the col The passage allude 'o occurs ta, the led "Theory of is," the Jast in Section III. of Schwann's cate, Microscopical Researches into the Accordance in the | Structure and Growth of Animals and Plants, by Dr Th, Schwann, Professor io the University of Louvain, published in 'Beclie in 1839. My translation of it iz hat made in Bey by Dro Heney South of London, (othe Sydenhas Society; ie rons. thus (p. 293) = hye” question, then, as forthe. furdanental power Sf organised ‘bodies “resolves itaefinto that of the “fundamental powers of "the indi. | vidtat"'calis; "These phenomena ‘maybe a ranged in two ‘natural frst, those which cof molecules to form cell; ‘relate to the combination Secondly, those which result from chemical changes ither in the component particles of the cell iself-or | Ie the surrounding cytoblastema, and maybe. called ‘metabolic phenomena (rd prraehicin, implying that Which is Uable to occasion or sulfer’ change). The italics are in the original. Here, then, so far as T metabolic,” though know, is the frst use of the term * thet en ena invabd by Wing ition” redudion ines Wolo terminaogy ofthe capes introdedion int elokeal ere Saree Sion * mesibole."and the prron.‘Theodore Schwann, Han tine prokanor ine ance Univerty of