Podcast Summary

New Books Network: Alison Bashford, "Decoding the Hand: A History of Science, Medicine, and Magic" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

Host: Dr. Miranda Melcher
Guest: Professor Alison Bashford
Date: January 10, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode of New Books Network features Professor Alison Bashford discussing her latest book, Decoding the Hand: A History of Science, Medicine, and Magic (University of Chicago Press, 2025). Bashford and host Dr. Miranda Melcher explore the rich and surprising history of palmistry, hand reading, anatomy, and their intersections with science, medicine, magic, and cultural traditions across the world. The conversation reveals how decoding the hand has never fit neatly into only science or superstition but instead crosses boundaries of knowledge, belief, and discipline from antiquity to the present.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origin and Curiosity Behind the Book

• Archive Discovery Spark (03:36–06:58):
  • The project began when Bashford stumbled upon an archival collection in the Wellcome Collection (London), containing palm prints not only of famous figures like Aldous Huxley, Virginia Woolf, and André Gide, but unexpectedly, a deceased gorilla named Mok.
  • The palmist collecting these was Dr. Charlotte Wolff, a Berlin-trained physician and psychoanalyst who read notable palms but also collected Mok’s post-mortem palm print from the London Zoo. This oddity led Bashford to dig deeper.
  • Quote:

    "That was the moment exactly as you responded to where I sat up. It was inscrutable to me. And that's the most delightful moment ... the strangeness of that palm print was the moment when I started digging around and then couldn't stop for years, and Decoding the Hand is the result." —Bashford (06:29)

2. Ancient Traditions: Chiromancy and Physiognomy

• Back to the Origins (07:40–11:50):
  • Bashford charts the history of palmistry or chiromancy—rooted in the Greek word for hand—and notes its deep connections with physiognomy, or the reading of the body's surface for character assessment.
  • These practices span ancient Indian, South Asian, Persian, Greek, Chinese, Islamic, and Hebrew traditions.
  • Quote:

    "It's a way physiognomy became really important... this detailed description of how if you've got a certain shaped nose, you'd have a certain character, if you've got coarse and curly hair... that is a sign of another character." —Bashford (09:46)

  • Noted that Aristotle’s writings are central in linking physiognomy and chiromancy.

3. Palmistry’s Path into Western Culture & Orientalism

• 19th-century Interest and "Gypsy" Stereotypes (11:50–15:41):
  • Western fascination often sought the "exotic," tying palmistry to Roma ("Gypsy") practices, presumed to trace linguistic and ritual roots to India, not Egypt as once thought.
  • Orientalist scholars in the 18th and 19th centuries saw palmistry as ethnographic evidence for Indo-European origins, highlighting an anthropological (rather than scientific) agenda.
  • Quote:

    "It's absolutely got a root in especially South Asian, Persian, Middle East traditions... it’s really the Indian ancient traditions that become most important in setting up traditions in Europe." —Bashford (12:28)

4. The "Weird" vs. Scientific Approaches

• Folklorists and Ethnographers (16:18–18:27):
  • These early anthropologists were often passionate, multilingual wanderers obsessed with tracking Roma languages and practices, operating outside formal scientific circles.
  • Quote:

    "It's these kind of one off completely idiosyncratic people who spend sometimes their entire lives literally walking across Europe... piecing together all kinds of different language, information, practice, information." —Bashford (17:09)

5. Serious Science: Anatomists and Physicians

• Medicine as Magic (18:43–23:10):
  • Many early chiromancy texts (15th/16th centuries) were authored by physicians, blending astrology, anatomy, and health. In this era, reading the hand was "ordinary, if complicated," linked to celestial bodies and personality or destiny.
  • Charles Bell’s The Hand (1830s) marked a shift to comparative anatomy, focusing on human and animal hands, foregrounding scientific approaches.
  • Quote:

    "Going back in time, reading the hand... is the history of medicine... written more often by physicians than anyone else." —Bashford (19:59)

6. From Palm Creases to Modern Genetics

• Palm Lines as Diagnoses (23:19–27:15):
  • By the late 19th/early 20th centuries, medical science linked specific hand lines (notably, the "Simian line" or transverse crease) with Down syndrome and intellectual disability.
  • Lionel Penrose, a population geneticist, and French researchers used palm line analysis as a diagnostic tool for Down syndrome into the mid-20th century.
  • Quote:

    "We might think that reading palm lines is a completely idiosyncratic and edge... However... some of the most distinguished geneticists of the mid 20th century... were looking at palms, lines in the palm." —Bashford (26:01)

7. Beyond Palmistry: Fingerprints and Biometrics

• Fingerprinting, Francis Galton, and Dermatoglyphics (27:30–34:45):
  • Bashford expanded her inquiry to all ways of "decoding" the hand: fingerprints for security/identity, medical clues, and the surprising field of dermatoglyphics (the scientific study of skin patterns, including hands and feet).
  • Francis Galton, key in both eugenics and fingerprinting history, also collected palm prints, hypothesizing diagnostic significance—an area that remained largely unexplored until recently.
  • Quote:

    "There, to my complete surprise ... amongst the thousands and thousands of fingerprints that Galtard had taken was the occasional palm print as well." —Bashford (32:37)

  • Dermatoglyphics, named in 1926, still endures as a scientific field.

8. Persistence of Palmistry and Scientific Hand Reading Today

• Practice and Medical Relevance (34:45–38:07):
  • Traditional palmistry remains widespread globally, especially in India and China—far from marginal.
  • Scientifically, hand crease analysis (e.g., four-finger crease/transverse line) continues to be recommended as a diagnostic for Down syndrome in modern neonatology.
  • Quote:

    "In a way... there are kind of lines in this that became more, not less, strictly medical and strictly scientific. And that's the kind of line of inquiry here that became most unexpected to me..." —Bashford (37:16)

9. Newton, Geometry, and the Hand

• Science, Magic, and Mathematical Patterns (38:31–41:11):
  • Isaac Newton, the great physicist, collected chiromancy books, saw meaning in the geometry of hand lines, and was fascinated by Kabbalah, embodying the blend of science and the magical/occult.
  • Quote:

    "At this point we need to understand that the history of science has magic in it.... Newton himself was intertwining the history of science and the history of magic." —Bashford (38:35)

  • The analysis of physical patterns, begun with Newton’s geometry of the hand, is echoed in 20th-century population geneticists’ mathematical studies.

10. Future Projects: Borderlands of Science and Myth

• Next Up for Bashford (41:39–43:34):
  • Bashford hints her next project will explore lost and mythical continents—Atlantis, Gondwanaland, and Lemuria—again looking at the "borderland between strict science and mythology."

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "If you're looking at something in the archives and you can't make head or tail of it, then that's the moment to stop and wonder if there's a story to tell."
  —Alison Bashford (02:54)
• On the central question:

  "What is that [a dead gorilla’s palm print] doing there alongside the prints of Aldous Huxley’s hands and so forth?" (06:11)

• On Isaac Newton’s interest in the occult:

  "Isaac Newton is a very serious person. This was an occult tradition, and occult means the idea of a hidden knowledge." (08:42)

• On the continuity of palm reading:

  "In India and in China, this is not marginal at all. This is something that is practiced all the time." (35:45)

• On hand reading’s medical persistence:

  "Several very high profile and very distinguished medical institutions will still give information around looking for the four finger crease or the transverse line, what used to be called the simian line, as ... diagnostic for Down syndrome with neonates." (36:54)

• On history’s surprises:

  "Researching the strange in the history of medicine is really what just pulls me back over and over again." (34:45)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:36] – Archive discovery and the gorilla’s palm print.
• [07:40] – Historical origins of chiromancy and physiognomy.
• [12:28] – Palmistry’s links to India, Persia, and Roma communities.
• [16:18] – The folklorists and ethnographers’ approach.
• [18:43] – Physicians and the medicalization of hand reading.
• [23:19] – 19th-century palm lines as clinical diagnostic tools.
• [27:30] – Broadening hand study to fingerprints and biometrics.
• [29:34] – Francis Galton’s switch from fingerprints to palm prints and dermatoglyphics.
• [34:45] – Survival of palmistry and scientific hand reading today.
• [38:31] – Isaac Newton’s chiromancy and geometry of the hand.
• [41:39] – Bashford’s next project: lost continents and the science-myth borderland.

Takeaway

Decoding the Hand invites us to reconsider the boundaries between science and magic, medicine and the occult, and cultural tradition and modern technology. The story of hand reading emerges as a bridge—connecting ages and genres of knowledge, and showing that even today, the “magical” is often woven unexpectedly deep within the fabric of scientific practice. Bashford’s research is a testament to the joy and value of following the strange and inscrutable wherever in the archives—or world—it may lead.