Uniqueness and individuality of human Palatal Rugae Pattern: As a supplemental tool for personal identification

Establishing the identity of a person may seem like an easy task; the person, or their friends or family, can simply be asked their name. In medicolegal cases, however, there are often reasons why people are either unable to give accurate answers or purposefully give inaccurate ones. In cases of death, a body may also be too disfigured due to trauma to allow for easy identification. Though sometimes difficult, identification remains a necessary task. Identification of an individual can be confirmed by several different methods. However when the number of victims increases, the forensic experts have to depend on more specific extensive information and at this point the dental tissues become an encyclopedia of information. Through this book, author aims to draw the attention that these methods cannot always be used, sometimes simple techniques can be used successfully in human identification, such as Palatal rugoscopy . Palatoscopy is a name given to the study of palatal rugae in order to establish a person s identity as no two palates are alike and palatal rugae appear to possess the features of ideal identification parameters - uniqueness, individuality and stability.