Palmistry is one of the ancient arts, practiced in Egypt, India, Greece and Rome and prized as a sacred and peculiar gift. Its practitioners were highly respected philosophers, oracles and priests. Yet by the 17th century, it had become a lost art, kept alive almost solely in gypsy camps. And by the end of the 19th century, it was seen as little more than quackery, a small step up (or down) from fortune telling and alchemy.