Abstract

Personal identification plays an integral part of any investigation in medico-legal cases. Stature is one of the important parameter. When the body is disintegrated or mutilated, estimation of stature becomes very difficult. There are many studies where stature is estimated using hand and foot length, length of middle finger, length of index and ring finger. But, there are very few studies where length of thumb has been used to estimate the stature. And most of the studies were applicable to adolescent population only. Hence the present study was planned to estimate the stature of the person using length of thumb of both the hands and identify the degree of its reliability for identifying a person. The present study was conducted in 200 subjects, 96 males and 104 females. The mean age of male subjects is 42.16 years and of female is 38.06 years. Mean length of left thumb (7.15 cm) and right thumb (7.08 cm) length in male is significantly more than that of females (6.45 cm) & (6.37 cm). We observed a significant correlation between thumb length and stature (right thumb r=0.520 and left thumb r=0.559) and the significant level for both pair is (p<.0001).

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