Are You Left-Handed?

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXI, Issue XX, 14 November 1903, Page 29

Are You Left-Handed?

SOME STRIKING FACTS ABOUT THE BRAIN. An “Answers” representative recently had an interesting conversation with Dr. Withrow, a young member of the medical profession, who has devoted considerable attention to the brain, though hr modestly confesses that he is yet but at the beginning of his studies, which later may lead to remarkable results. ‘‘You see.” said Dr- Withrow, “that ordinary persons trouble themselves but little as to how far their brain influences their most ordinary muscular actions of everyday life, and yet it is a fact that before you move a limb the order to move that limb must be conveyed to it from the brain. The headquarters in the brain from where these orders are issued is known as the speech-centre. “The speech-centre lies either at the right or left side of the brain. If it lies on the right side the orders will be transmitted more rapidly to the left than to the right limbs, and make a person what is generally called left-handed, though in reality a more correct term would be right-minded- On the other hand, a person having the speech-centre on the left will exercise their right limbs more readily than their left, and such an individual might be called leftminded. “Young children, who naturally use their left hand in preference to their right, are simply ooeying the orders issued from the brain, and if not taught to use their right hand will grow up left-handed. When taught from their earliest years to use their right hand they find no difficulty in doing so later on. because the habit becomes so strong: but 1 have seen one or two rare instances where reversion to the use of the left hand has come about late in life. One case was after a long attack of fever, when during the period of delirium the patient began to use the left hand more than the right, and during recovery took his medicine with his left hand. “Both sides of the brain are capable of performing the duties of giving commands to the limbs; but. as I said, the orders only come from one side, either from the right or left: but if the side upon which the speech-centre lies gets injured, and is rendered incapable of performing its duty, then the other side takes up the work, though it requires some time before it can do so properly. “Supposing a man meets with a bad fall or accident of any kind which damages the speech-centre on the left, he becomes dumb for the time being. Then the right side slowly learns how to give orders and the man gradually regains power of speech after some years, but in many such eases he becomes left-handed, because now the orders from the brain are transmitted more rapidly to the loft than to the right. “You have often experienced. I suppose. the curious feeling that you have done something, or met someone at some time or other when in reality you have not done so at all. There are two or three theories to account for this hallucination, but the now generally accepted theory is, that in such eases one side of the brain acts slightly quicker than the other. Thoughts of this sort, by the way. have nothing to say to the speech-centre which only controls muscular action. Tn thinking of any idea or person, both sides of the brain act. simultaneously; but. as 1 say. in some cases one side acts a bit quicker than the other. “Supposing the left side of your brain conceived the idea that you were going to tie your bootlace, and that the right side was, say a thousandth-part of a second behind hand in grasping the same idea, the result, when tin* right side did grasp it. would be that you would imagine that you had already lied your bootlace. “Of course, no one could possibly notice the delay in the action of one side of the brain, but the result, when it does occur, is to make a person fancv ht* had already performed an action which in reality he had only thought of performing, and the strangest part of such an hallucination is that the contemplated action seems to have been done a long time ago. Of course, being right or left-minded has nothing to sav to a person’s intellect a very clever, or a very dull man may be either one or the other.”