Time Magazine
June 27, 1969

Revealing Palm Lines

Medical researchers are finding valuable diagnostic clues in what would seem to be an unlikely place—the hollow of an infant’s hand. Certain abnormalities in palm lines and fingerprint patterns can alert pediatric cardiologists to the existence of inborn heart defects, including those that develop in the womb, perhaps from a maternal infection such as rubella. Other aberrant patterns may indicate to specialists in the science of dermatoglyphics (literally, “skin carvings”) the presence of Down’s syndrome (mongolism) and other chromosomal disorders. Now, researchers have discovered that some unusual palm lines signal the possibility of childhood leukemia.

Formed in the Womb. The patterns of fingerprints and the fine lines on the palm are established by the fourth month of life in the womb. The more conspicuous “flexion creases” (the palmist’s “heart, head and life lines”) are formed a month or two earlier. In normal palms, the heart and head lines are separate and distinct, and neither extends clear across the palm. In many victims of mongolism and of prenatal rubella, however, they are replaced by a single “simian crease,” like that on a monkey’s palm. At the Children’s Medical Research Foundation in Sydney, Australia, Dr. Margaret A. Menser and S. G. Purvis-Smith found another abnormality. In this, an extended head line becomes a simianlike crease, slanting across the palm but leaving a separate heart line. Somewhat chauvinistically, they called it the “Sydney line,” although other diagnosticians claim to have observed and described it earlier.

Writing in the British medical weekly Lancet, the investigators describe the palm lines of 100 normal children and how they compare with those of 25 children with acute or chronic leukemia. Thirty-six percent of the leukemic children had either a simian or a Sydney line in one or both palms, as against only 13% of the normals. Victims of genetically determined mongolism are notoriously susceptible to leukemia. Oddly, identical patterns appear in the palms of the mongoloid children and in those of rubella-damaged babies. The reason, according to the Australian researchers, may be that some fetuses are genetically predisposed either to leukemia, or to suffer unusually severe damage from a maternal viral infection. Such damage, they suggest, may manifest itself a few years later as leukemia.

The Times (London)
November 26, 1998

Palmed off
by Jasper Gerard

TONY BLAIR has a genetic abnormality. This is the conclusion of Britain’s Cheirological Society (founded 1889) which has been studying the PM’s preaching hands. Experts have studied video “grabs” of Blair, waving his hands in the preachy mode that has been sent up so damagingly by Harry Enfield, and noticed that he possesses a simian line on each hand. Only 2.5 per cent of male types possess this distinguishing feature, which indicates a decidedly odd streak. More than half of those who suffer from Down’s Syndrome are born with simian lines on their hands.

Normal folk have two lines on their hands but Blair’s merge together. It is a feature shared by drug addicts, mass murderers, scientific researchers and religious fanatics. The society is the national guardian of this knowledge after studying the palms of habitues of Parkhurst Prison. It contends that this indicates that Blair is zealous, obsessive, and has tremendous will-power. Even Baroness Thatcher, President Saddam Hussein and Michael Heseltine lacked this mark.

“I don’t think anyone with it is normal,” says Christopher Jones, society secretary. “Blair is not intellectually retarded but his emotions are subsumed into his intellectual orientation. He is on a mission. He is going to be very good or very bad. It’s very unusual. He will change things radically.” As for Sermon from St Albion’s, its author Ian Hislop says: “Blair has much in common with vicars: very emphatic and demonstrative.”

Daily Mail (London)
November 27, 1998

How Blair Holds Power in the Palm of His Hand;
Revealed: Simian Secret of a Premier’s Passion
by Michael Harvey

THE good news is that it signifies a fierce passion to fulfill one’s mission.

The downside is that it is a physical feature commonly shared by murderers and religious fanatics.

So the revelation that Tony Blair has not just one but two is information the spin doctors should handle with care. The simian line, a genetic abnormality of the palm in which the ‘heart line’ (starting below the little finger) and the ‘head line’ (starting above the thumb) fuse into one, is present in only 2.5 per cent of the male population.

Not being a man to do things by halves, Mr Blair has one on each hand.

Research shows they are generally found on people who are intense and intractable, an observation which will provoke knowing smiles among critics who have branded him a control freak.

Blair devotees, of course, can take refuge in more positive interpretations of the zeal and single-mindedness said to accompany the line.

The theories behind the palmistry were explained last night by Rupert Alison, of the Chierological Society, an organisation of those who make a science from the study of hands.

The fusion, he said, reflects the merging of intellect and emotion.

‘Most people can separate out their emotions from their rational thought,’ he said. ‘This is signified by the divergence of the head and heart lines on the vast majority of people’s palms.

‘But with Tony Blair, his emotions are subsumed into his intellectual orientation. He is permanently on a mission.’ More than half those who suffer from Down’s Syndrome have the abnormality. In their case the intellect is weaker and sufferers tend to be governed by their emotions. If they feel like doing something they go ahead without thinking.

For people like the Prime Minister with a strong intellect, they tend to follow their thoughts through passionately.

Those with a simian line are characteristically described as ‘hyperactive, aggressive and impatient’.

The society has studied the palms of prison inmates and found that simian lines occur more frequently in drug addicts and murderers.

No other political leaders are thought to have them. The only other known example in British public life was General Sir Red-vers Buller, who led the British Army at the start of the Boer War.

Admired as one of the most able generals of his day, his singlemindedness helped him relieve Ladysmith but also led to devastating defeats at Colenso and Spion Kop.

The Prime Minister was too busy pursuing the struggle for peace in Northern Ireland yesterday to comment on his unusual palms. But a Downing Street spokesman was unimpressed.

‘The Chierological Society has done very well in publicising itself,’ she said with a sniff.

The Times (London)
December 1, 1998

Safe in Blair’s hands?
From Mr. Raymond Wallis

Sir, Your Diary’s report (November 26) on Tony Blair’s simian line on both hands is intriguing.

Dr Charlotte Wolff, the psychiatrist who published works on psychological diagnosis of hands and gesture in the 1930s and 1940s, describes the hand with such an atavistic characteristic as one which must be classified as irregular (The Human Hand, Methuen, 1942). She found that such hands were commonly possessed by those of subnormal intelligence but could also be found in the “gifted degenerate.” She found it amongst painters, musicians, poets and scientists of worldwide reputation but noted that, while their intelligence surpassed the average, “the emotions of such people show a regression to the conditions proper to primitive man.”

Yours faithfully, RAYMOND WALLIS

[This is a very similar article]

Sunday Mail
December 6, 1998

Power Line
By Michael Harvey

A rare physical aberration may explain why successful and often obsessive people appear to hold the world in the palm of their hand.

HANDS UP: Prince Charles, John Howard and Bill Clinton don’t have the simian line.

THE good news is that it signifies a fierce passion to fulfill one’s mission.

The downside is that it is a physical feature commonly shared by murderers and religious fanatics. The simian line, a genetic abnormality of the palm in which the “heart line” (starting below the little finger) and the “head line” (starting above the thumb) fuse into one, is present in only 2.5% of the world’s male population.

Among world leaders only Britain’s Tony Blair is known to have the simian line – and on both hands.

Research shows they are generally found on people who are intense and intractable, an observation which will provoke knowing smiles among critics who have branded Mr. Blair a control freak.

Blair devotees, of course, can take refuge in more positive interpretations of the zeal and single-mindedness said to accompany the line.

The theories behind the palmistry were explained last week by Rupert Alison, of the Chierological Society, an organisation of those who make a science from the study of hands.

The fusion of these lines, he said, reflects the merging of intellect and emotion.

“Most people can separate out their emotions from their rational thought,” he said.

“This is signified by the divergence of the head and heart lines on the vast majority of people’s palms.

“But with Tony Blair, for instance, his emotions are subsumed into his intellectual orientation. He is permanently on a mission.”

More than half those who suffer from Down’s syndrome have the abnormality. In their case, the intellect is weaker and sufferers tend to be governed by their emotions. If they feel like doing something they go ahead without thinking.

For people like Mr. Blair with a strong intellect, they tend to follow their thoughts through passionately.

Those with a simian line are characteristically described as “hyperactive, aggressive and impatient”.

The society has studied the palms of prison inmates and found that simian lines occur more frequently in drug addicts and murderers.

University Wire November 19, 2001
U. Southern California

Palmistry is the age-old art of using the human hand to predict an individual’s fate. Palmists use the lines in the palm of the hand as a guide or blueprint to unravel an individual’s character, motivations and desires. The simian line (a specific joining of the heart and head lines) is a double-edged sword to all who possess it. Individuals doomed to a life ruled by the simian line can never attain true balance, but instead focus intensely on each separate aspect of their lives. Whether it be health, wealth or happiness, those of the simian affliction can rest assured that they will live a life of great extremes.

The Mirror
February 15, 2002

Your Problems: Do Lines Show My Baby Has Low IQ?
By Miriam Stoppard

Question: My baby was born 10 weeks ago and I’m worried sick.

The doctor who examined her after her birth asked another doctor to look at the lines on the palms of her hands and then on her feet, and they kept whispering to each other.

My baby’s lovely and the midwife and health visitor say she’s fine. She was OK at her six-week examination. Then I heard that lines on the palm of your hands show up a low intelligence. Now I can think of nothing else. What did those doctors see? And why didn’t they tell me?

Answer: THEY didn’t say anything because they didn’t see anything. So rest assured, your baby’s fine.

What you’ve heard about is some new research showing that people with learning difficulties sometimes have distinctive lines on their hands. The lines—which include crease marks on the palm, as well as ridges and unusual fingerprint patterns—may also give clues to intelligence generally.

We’ve always known that lines on fingers and palms can predict a range of conditions and diseases.

...
The Simian line across the palm, so called because it’s prominent in monkeys, but which few people have, may be an indicator of a low IQ. Doctors think dermatoglyphics could be important as markers for disease because they develop at specific times in the foetus.

Fingerprints, for example, begin to form at around the 13th week and are completed around week 18—the same time critical growth in the brain takes place.

Several factors that the foetus can be exposed to, including infection or a drop in nutrition, may affect the patterns of the lines as well as the development of other organs. ...

Alberta Report
January 26, 1998

Is madness only skin deep? A psychiatrist relates schizophrenia to handprints
By Les Sillars

Dr. Julio Arboleda-Florez has no crystal balls, Tarot cards or sheep livers in his office, but he does read palms. The head of the University of Calgary’s forensic psychiatry department is working on a research project involving dermatoglyphics, the study of skin patterns in the hand. He hopes to soon be able to use handprints to tell whether people are schizophrenic or likely to become so, and he even thinks that dermatoglyphics may one day help forecast other types of mental illness.

“It’s a form of highly sophisticated and scientific palm reading, as opposed to palmistry,” says Dr. Arboleda-Florez, who came to Canada from Colombia in 1967. “It’s like the difference between astronomy and astrology.”

It seems bizarre, but since the early 1800s scientists have suspected, and not without good reason, that there is a connection between skin patterns on the hands and the development of the brain. The best-known and best-documented example is the so-called “Simian Crease” observed in children with Down’s Syndrome because their thumbs are not perfectly opposable, Down’s sufferers have a straight line running across their palm where most people have two irregular lines. Dr. Arboleda-Florez, who is an epidemiologist as well as a psychiatrist, hopes to make a similar stride in the understanding of schizophrenia, which occurs in between 0.5% and 1% of the population and causes delusions, hallucinations, and fuzzy thinking (but not, as is popularly supposed, “split personality”). The hypothetical link between palm lines and brain development goes back to the third month of pregnancy, explains Dr. Arboleda-Florez. The fetus, at that time a lump of undifferentiated cells, collapses inward in a process called “invagination.” Then ectoderm cells begin to migrate toward the surface of the fetus. Some eventually form the baby’s brain and nervous system while others become the baby’s limbs and hands. Thus, anything that affects the development of the baby’s brain at this point could also affect its hands. “What we have in the hands is a photograph of what happened at three months,” says the doctor.

Everybody is born with a certain amount of asymmetry nobody’s left and right handprints or nostrils are exactly the same, one foot may be larger, and internal organs are not located exactly in the middle of the torso. Dr. Arboleda-Florez’s suspicion is that significant asymmetry between the left and right handprints indicates that some trauma, possibly the mother contracting the flu or some other virus, affected the fetal brain during invagination. Such a trauma could increase the baby’s susceptibility to mental illness.

A causal connection between mental illness and fetal trauma has not been established, Dr. Arboleda-Florez admits. But he contends that studies around the world have found that areas that endure a major flu epidemic experience a rise in the incidence of schizophrenia 15 or 20 years later. Similarly, the rate of schizophrenia among people born during the winter months is 15% higher than among those born in other seasons. No one knows why it is thought that it may be related to the temperature of the uterine environment or to the different incidences of viral diseases during different seasons.

To measure handprint asymmetry, Dr. Arboleda-Florez has a patient brush his hands with graphite dust and place them on sheets of clear, sticky plastic. Three main values are then computed and compared between the left and right hands. Dr. Arboleda-Florez measures the number of lines in each fingerprint, the number of lines between two specific spots at the bases of the forefinger and index finger, and the angle formed by drawing a line from the base of the forefinger to a convergence of ridges on the heel of the palm and from there up to the base of the pinky.

In a small pilot study, Dr. Arboleda-Florez found that schizophrenia patients with a family history of the disease had more asymmetry than their immediate family members and far more asymmetry than non-schizophrenics in the general population. He also found that the family members of schizophrenics had normal handprints if there was no past history of schizophrenia in the family.

Dr. Arboleda-Florez and colleagues at the U of C and the University of Alberta are now collecting 240 handprints from three categories (patients, family members and the general population). The study, funded mainly by the Alberta Heritage Foundation and the Calgary-based Bebensee Foundation, should be finished this spring. Right now, university students do the actual analysis, which takes about an hour, but researchers in England and Germany are working on software to do the job in a few minutes by computer.

If the asymmetry hypothesis pans out, dermatoglyphics could allow doctors to screen vast numbers of people for schizophrenia: right now, the only diagnostic tools to hand are lengthy and complicated questionnaires and interviews. “It’s important to diagnose schizophrenia early,” says Dr. Arboleda-Florez. “[Patients] start to show symptoms as early as 12, and this could help parents deal with problems that develop as teens.” He adds that as the techniques eventually become more sophisticated, specific types of handprint asymmetries could be linked to other mental illnesses such as manic-depression and psychopathy.

Townsend Letter: The Examiner of Alternative Medicine
October 1, 2007

Hand Marking Linked to Down Syndrome: Human Hand Expert Creates New Forum on the Single Transverse Palmar Crease, or Simian Line

Kenneth Lagerstrom, a human hand expert with over 30 years experience, has created a new forum at forum.humanhand.com that outlines and discusses possible connections between Down Syndrome and Single Transverse Palmar Crease, or Simian Line. This common hand anomaly has also been associated with other health conditions, such as Turner Syndrome and Trisomy 13, says the hand analysis expert. “On most people’s palms, there are two distinct horizontal lines,” Lagerstrom said. “When there is only one line running straight across the entire palm, this marking is known as a Simian Line.”

A Simian Line is also called the “Simian Crease,” “Simian Fold,” “Palmar Crease,” “Transverse Palmar Crease,” and “Single Transverse Palmar Crease.” As many as one in 30 people have this marking on their hands. “Most people who have a Simian Line on their palms are completely unaware of it and also unaware of the possible implications. It is my hope that this forum will help to increase awareness and prompt more detailed medical research into the link between the Simian Line and various congenital health conditions.”