Extraordinary Fingernails.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 951, 23 May 1890, Page 8

Extraordinary Fingernails.

World of Wonders. When we travel to the far East, we find the form of the finger-nails proclaiming unquestionably the claims of their owners to rank and fashion, and are astonished that any people should be willing to submit themselves to the inconvenience which such distinction necessitates. We are all more or less acquainted with the extraordinary manner in which the feet of Chinese ladies of the upper ranks are disfigured during infancy, so that in after life they are of little or no service as organs of progression, but become mere mummied records of what they might have been. So also we find both men and women belonging to the upper classes permitting the finger-nails to attain an enormous, and to our eyes a hideous, de. velopment under the same influence of the mode. Chinese belles and dandies are in consequence often to be seon with the nails projecting from an inch to an inch and a half beyond the finger-tips ; and these unseemly appendeges are pared and tended with the utmost care, and are regarded with pride and gratification by their happy possessors. But it is in Siam, in Annam, and in Cochin China that this extraordinary custom is carried to its greater development. The nobles of Anuam, for instance, permit their nails to grow to such a length that the hands are absolutely useless for any practical purpose. The nails on the second, third, and fourth fingers attain a length of from four to nearly five inches. They are straight, with a slight inward curve, and present the appearance of immense claws or talons • which we could imagine might be of use to man in his most savage state, for scratching up the ground to find roots or seeds, but certainly do not appear adapted for either use or ornament under any of the ordinary incidents of life. The nail of thg thumb is hardly so long as those of the other digits. It at first grows nearly straight, with also a tendency to curve inwards, but presently takes the form of an elongated spiral, and must almost entirely prevent the use of the thumb as am organ of prehension. On the firßt Auger alone is the nail lcept within reasonable bounds, and with this only must be performed all those innumerable trifling acts which taken altogether add so greatly to our comfort and well-being. It sometimes happens that the nails are allowed to grow to a great length to indicate that the wearer leads a religious life, and has foresworn at

once the labours and the frivolities of the world. The hand of a Chinese ascetic, lead ing such an indolent and wasteful existence, presents the moat extraordinary spectacle. The nail of the first linger is indeed, as in the case of the Annamese already described, left sufficiently short to render the finger of some practical service. The other lingers, are, however, disfigured by immense horny growths, .which can scarcely be called nails, which roach-the enormous length of from sixteen to eighteen inches. These hideous excrescences do not grow straight and clawlike, as do the Annamese nails referred to above, but in a curious irregular spiral curve, the nails of the second and third fingers interlacing in an extraordinary and particularly ugly fashion. The nail of the little finger, after projecting for some distance almost straight, with a Blight upward tendency, makes a sudden bend, and reaches with a regular sickle-shaped curve across the nails of the two neighbouring fingers. The thumb is furnished with an almost flat nail, which assumes a spiral form from its itn-' mediate junction with the fleshy part of the organ. This extraordinary development of the finger-nails is supposed to be produced by hypertrophy of the horny tissues, induced doubtless by some special agency or mechanical irritation for the purpose of obtaining a plentiful secretion of the horny material. "But that any state of snciet3’ should exist in which to render the hands thus utterly useless and hideous was regarded as a virtue, cannot but strike persons unaccustomed to such vagaries of fashion as remarkable in the extreme. So essential as a mark of nobility, however, are long nails regarded in what is known as the Transgangetic Peninsula, that Siamese actors and aotresses, when playing the parts of ‘lords and ladies,’ usually appear with long silver i horn-shaped ornaments attaohed to the ends of the fingers, not to represent the nails themselves of the aristocracy, but those long Bilver cases with which the beaux and belles either protect these valuable appendages when they are there, or make believe that they are there when in reality they are absent. Though it is in Siam and the neighbouring States that the custom of wearing these prodigious appendages reaches iis mpst ridiculous height, yet long fingernails are more or less fashionable in many other parts of the world. Gentlemen in England and in France may often be fonnd taking a pride in the exuberant developmer t of these organs, while throughout the East it is more or less the fashion to permit one or more of the nails to attain what may be regarded as an abnormal growth. Thus ambassadors and visitors of distinction from Asiatic States to Europe are often observed to permit the excessive growth of the nail of the little finger, and this is also a common occurrence with many of the people ia India and other parts of Asia. With whatever feelings of disgust the appearance of hands thus furnished may fill us, we should, however, remember that for the anatomist and physiologist not a little interest is attached to this excessive development of the fingernails. For by this it is seen that certain growths of the nail hitherto regarded as abnormal and" extraordinary, are in reality indications of the normal growth of the nails when carefully preserved from all retarding influences. Nevertheless it cannot be supposed that the nails upon our hands and feet were ever intended to attain such extraordinary length, and it is, in fact, only by beooming entirely dependent upon the service of others that the aristocrats of the halfcivilised countries of the East are enabled to proclaim their miserable superiority to their fellow-meh.