The Skin Game

Abstract

We occasionally read of a keenly sensitive bloodhound tracking a criminal to his hiding place after partaking of a whiff from some garment that had been in intimate contact with the fugitive's body; the dog had no actual acquaintance with the human being he was following, and the person was found merely through the trail he had left behind him, marked by the odorous exhalations from his body, which clung to such solid substances as the person came in contact with; the dog passed by all other people and their several odors, wholly ignoring everyone except the particular individual he was seeking-and later found. Almost any dog, at'some time or other, may have been seen wandering around where people were congregated, sniffing first at one person and then at another, and going on until he smelled the friendly acquaintance whom he sought and who was at once recognized by his proper odor. Both dogs availed themselves of the sign-physical, represented by the odor of the secretions and exhalations of a certain particular human body, which were distinguishable by the dogs from similar signs of all other human bodies; they had learned that every person within their experiences had his own particular natural body scent, thus becoming aware of a fact that in all probability is of universal application. Human beings, however, are not at present endowed with so sharp a sense of smell as the lower animals, and therefore must depend on other means of identifying one another, such as the voice, the movements, and the physical form and appearance. In the absence of the individual, recognition is gained (1) through observation of the character of work done by the physical machinery of the absent one, such as his handwriting in penmanship, his style of brush work in a painting, his manner of cutting in an engraving, or (2) through observation of mere records of certain parts of his physical body, such as his bodily measurements, foot prints, finger prints, etc. The first form of absent recognition is therefore based on the active operations of the human physical machine, while the second rests on a mere passive record of certain parts of that machine. It is with a branch of the passive form that we are now particularly concerned.