AN EXTRAORDINARY CULT.

Grey River Argus, 25 November 1910, Page 1

AN EXTRAORDINARY CULT.

THE GIFTED AMBIDEXTROUS

A movement has been started in ■Germany for the -cultivation of ambidexterity. The. Berlin correspondent of the St James's. Budget explains tha: the idea -is that developing rhe power to use both hands equally well mean.i dereloping the intelligence 131 and the memory in particular.

It is said to have been scientifically ascertained that while .right-handed people have the organ of speech on the left side, of the brain, and vice veria, people' 'who are ambidextrous -have .two language centres — one iin each lobe of the brain. The infant begins life with two speech centres, but as the^ right hand is generally trained, and the left neglected, the right speech centre gradually grows torpid and useless.

The extraordinary claim, is now made that by the cultivation of 'the left hand the capacity of the right speech centre of the brain can be.revived, and to that extent broaden the intelligence as .ambidexterity lincreases 'the use of the human being's hand.

Instances are quoted by supporters of the- movement in which practising 'the left hand has rescued a powers of speech until then paralysed. One patient in question wa s stricken by paralysis of" the left organ of speech, and with it paralysis of the right hand The doctors star-ted teaching the patient to write with" the left hand, with tne astomishiing result that in a short time \ the power of speech was awakened in the hitherto torpid organ of speech. ■

An even more astonishing case was ■that of a boy, who, at the <ige of thirteen, lost his left hand, but soon learned to do fairly well with an artificial member. ' At the age of thirty, he suffered ' a //sitroke of 'paralysis, which robbed him of the power of speech, but by means of a small ring With a pen attached to it, fixed to the artificial limb, he could practice writing, and thus not only 'irecovered power over his original speech but over French and Russian which he had forgotten. As a matter of fact, ambidexterity >is necessary an several professions' and occupations, of which surgery and prano-playing may be given a-s examples.