Fingerprint Dactyloscopy Loop, whorl, and arch Commentary

Nehemiah Grew biometrics

Fingerprint

• People had noticed patterns
• on the fingertips.
• Babylonians pressed fingers into clay
• as signatures on legal documents.
• Nehemias Grew put them under a microscope
• and wrote in 1684 the first scientific description
• of the patterns of ridges
• on fingers and palms.

Dactyloscopy

• Pudd’nhead Wilson and Sherlock Holmes
• caught their perpetrators,
• but Scottish police
• falsely accused detective Shirley McKie
• based on a fingerprint at the scene of the crime.
• Patterns of friction ridges
• on your fingertips, your palms,
• and the soles of your feet,
• no two alike, uniquely identify you
• to the CIA, FBI, and your local police.

Loop, whorl, and arch

• Loops, whorls, and arches
• swirl like van Gogh’s Starry Night,
• but the chaos has been classified
• and reduced to a number
• for easy filing.
• This line of reasoning,
• emphasizing efficiency and consistency,
• dessicates reality to where
• idiots can follow procedures
• and artists despair.