CURIOSITIES OF THE HAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11986, 7 June 1902, Page 6 (Supplement)

CURIOSITIES OF THE HAND.

■ Under this title a number ,of interesting j facts regarding the human hand have been collected in an article contributed to La jScience Illustree (March 15) by M. G. j d'Augerville. The writer begins with a description of some curious anomalies and de- ; formities of the hand. He .says : — In normal hands the middle linger is al- \ ways the longest; the thumb and little finger the shortest, the index and ring-fingers being intermediate. But here he notes a : curious point. With many persons the index is longer thaH the _ ring-finger; with others the reverse is the case. Professor Ecker, of Freiburg, has taken up this question. He remarks in the first place that in large monkeys—the gorilla, the chimpanzee, and the oraug—the index is always shorter than the ring-finger. With women the ringfinger is often shorter. In antique works of art the index is always longer than the ringfinger. Ecker thinks that the long j index-finger indicates a higher type of hand, and that it is found by preference among women. An Italian anatomist. Dr. Mantegazza, has token up the investigation. In a series of 711 observations he finds that the index is generally shorter and that equality of the two fingers is very rare. The long index, he also finds, is met most frequently • among women. I —■— n n iiiimii BiaaMßUMßaapag—«a—— mining

" Many persiis have Wit ' f '^ !Sa9! * , recently ca11,,, kJ^Jfigtt I sent on the ion, that bear* *V"*y»-»V on the middle jW, anTJXS^*»*» ; ■on the first jointi . . Blwa prenij I "This hair is flridentivW« . ' 'fur that our preluman LSSfe'*<«• j cause the end joint is m"WpW^m : th;'r. the oth,rs t contact S^EL**"* "The hand is , fßctor ()f n ' 'nrtion. portauee in hy-iele. 1 , «w----cludhig some of tie «,„, ,S £***«> fr mitted through L 'How S^> says Dr. Pinard, \ake off thSS V^U ' mg their hands wjl, the dust n^'^'ldown to a meal khont wash,! ( ? t then *'* ™a 4 howconta ma ;^ "Again, the hank which in & » workman are always in contact ot » > tools, and in any c;Be are alvan $*?M are more subject tolwounds ■~,'/ k ,notl "o, other parts of the body ' E??ftT? *«8 the skin is a door 5 opened u J OB 3 * feebon; so the means of d&ff ' (abundant in the 'hand Tim ; rc VetT capillaries form ove it a ' thicfc'-W«* ! especially at the endsbi the fin-4 °*' The leucocytes or jwhite-bloSd U^fr i abound in them, arm ,! IPU a bun) " i gate of invasion to microbes tJi he to the soot, surround the tinv btaSijW , digest them This is important noiuwiori ot pha K olvtosis di cov! r L P '•' studied by Metehnikoff " LOVer «i ni