Evaluation of Stature from Dimensions of Footprints

Height of an individual is essential information to identify a person in any day-to-day portfolios such as employment forms, medical examination reports, police complaint, matrimonial advertisements, passports etc. Therefore, the estimation of height of an individual is, however of more compelling concern to clinicians, forensic and anthropology experts (1). As, suggested by anthropologist such as Dupertius and Hadden (2), trotter and glesser (3), the orthodox methods for evaluation of stature by forensic experts from skeletal remains are limited to bone lengths that are subjected to many sets of regression equations calculated for this purpose. Whereas, in this study a search through literature (4, 5, 6) revealed a few "rule of thumb" formulae developing a few regression equations (7, 8, 9) for estimating stature from the foot size. As, footprints have been accepted as evidence of identification in our courts and in many countries (10). More likely, footprints at a scene of crime left by a barefoot criminal are the type of evidence that is crucial to linking the suspect to the crime (11). Hence, it is imperative that amore intensive study of foot and footprints are a form of physical evidence that has tremendous value in a tropical country like India.