The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1905-05-04
LEFT HANDED THEORIES
Brilliant and Untenable Notions
About This Condition.
MENTIONED IN THE BIBLE


Some Doctors Claim Left-handednes
Transmitted From Mother Car.
rying Child on Left Arm and De-
veIoping Left Side at Expense of
the Right.
More uesswork-scientfic, quasi
scientific, unscientifc and anti-scien-
tific-has been applied TO the solu-
tion of this question of right and
| left handedness than to any other
physiological subject probably, ana
the mystery still remains unsolved.
| One thing, however, is certain, that
there was never race of men or
women which was completely ambi-
| dextrous, or both-handed, nor any
which was not predominantly right
handed, nor any in which a consider
able proportion were not 'eft-handed.
Indians on the plains, EskIInos in the
Arctic SHOWS, negroes in the African
jungle, Chinese, Hindus, black Aus
tralians, are right and left handed
but always the right-handed have the
majority.
1t is also certain that the seat of
right and left handedness is in the
brain, and that right-handed people
have special development, to cover
the characteristic, in the left lobe of
the brain, and left-handed people a
special development in the right lobe
of the brain.
Charles Reade, the great English
novelist, wrote volumes to try to
prove that people make their children
right-handed by forcing them to han
die the spoon, the knife and other
articles with the right hand. His
theory was that, unless the child
were so guided, 1t would use either
hand indifferently, and grow up both
handed; that all people, in fact, were
intended by nature to be both-hand-
ed, and that either right or left
handedness is a perversion. But II Is
doubtful if Reade ever convinced any
one who has observed the persistent
determination of any child to give
preference either to one hand or the
other
Charles Reade's theory, by the way,
took no account of the fact that peo-
pie are right-handed and left-handed
It would be absurd to suppose that
natural equality Of force and supple
ness between the legs could be de-
stroyed by making a child hold a
spoon in its right hand.
child, or grown person, may be
made, by training and practice, quite
ambidextrous, but no person can be
cured of the feeling of right-handed-
ness or left-handedness as the case
may be. Though we may not think
Of 1t, men are never entirely free
from the positive sensation Of phys
ical superiority on one side of the
body above the other. Right or left
handedness Is ingrained in the con-
sciousness.
This last-mentioned fact DESTROYS
another pretty notion, that the right
hand of one right-handed person may
be the same thing as the left hand
Of another; that is to say, that the
whole human outfit of hands, so to
speak, is graded up from a minimum
to maximum of deXterous capa-
bility, often modified by usage: that
a handy" person, for instance, may
have two right hands, and a clumsy
and unskillful person may merely
possess two left hands.
The first left-handed man of whom I
can recall any account in literature
was Ehud the Benjamite, who made
use of his popularity to enable him
to assassinate King Eglon of Moab
with that hand while he was pretend
ing to give the tyrant a present from
the Israelites with the right. AS in
this deed the left-handed man was
carrying out an edict of the Lord,
the first Scriptural mention of left
handedness is associated with an hon
orable distinction. But the opposite
association of superior honor attach.
ed to the right hand goes back fur
ther than that. The Almighty Is
continually made right-handed in the
Bible, from Exodus XIV. down.
IT is a curious fact, too, that the
Hebrews used the right hand to de-
note the south, from which quarter
the power of the sun comes; "jamin,"
the right hand, being the south, and
"shemol." the left hand the mega
tive and unenergized north.
But all these expressions are from
the point of view of right-handed peo-
pie. If there were such a thing as
left-handed people, all the expressions
would be the other way.--L. e. w
Proportion of Births and Deaths.
M. Jacques Bertillon has recently
developed the law of the parallellsm
of the movement of population, ac-
cording to which the birth rate and