Living with Two Different Fingerprints: Legal Implications and Identification Issues

Abstract

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the news of the first hand transplant performed in San Gerardo Hospital of Monza, Italy, was widely announced and enthusiastically greeted by the press. The event was welcomed with amazement, as it reminded us of our deep emotions when Dr. Christian Barnard performed the first heart transplant in Cape Town, South Africa. At that time, the issue of any possible psychological changes in the recipient’s personality was thoroughly debated: somehow, heart transplant could be experienced, sometimes with fear, as a different sense of self, a significant change in the peculiarity, individuality and identity of the human being.