The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-06-06
NAIL BITING HEREDITARY.
Doctor Finds That It's a Family Habit
 in Many Cases.

'Heredity7 Look at these finger nails of mine," said a physician of somewhat stolid exterior. "Observe that every one of them is bitten down to the quick. They've been bitten down to the quick ever since I can re- member, and in spite of everything I could do. I've tried all or most of the schemes that have been invented to stop folks from gnawing on their nails. and yet here are my disgracefully bit ten nails to show how ineffective such schemes are-in my case. at any rate.
 Now, my mother bit her finger nails in precisely the same fashion. She had a beautiful pair of hands, with long, slender, tapering fingers, and it was one of the miseries of her exist ence that she simply kcould not get away from the habit of running her nails by biting them. Not only that, but my mother told me that her father inveterately bit his nails, and her fath- CT. in turn, told her that his mother had tried all of her life to do away with the habit of biting her nails without success,
 "So you see that in my case the nail biting habit is distinctly hereditary.
 My curiosity as to this matter led me to investigate it in the casn of oth- CT persons, all of them in my practice, who had the nail biting habit. and 5 found that in every case I tackled their immediate progenitors, on one side or the other, had the nail biting habit.
 There's no reason whatever why I should bite my. nails. It is asserted by some specialists in nerve diseases that the practice springs from a certain form of nervousness; but I doubt if that can be true. for an actually the least nervous person on top of the globe, so far as I know. My mother was one of the most composed persons of her sex I ever knew. I myself have long since given up trying to break myself of the practice, which, being an involuntary and unconscious one, IS al most impossible to control. have. with the greatest dificulty, contrived at times to let four or five of my nails grow. permitting them to attain an al- most foolish length. because was so nroud of them; but at the same time thnt these long ones looked like the hooked finger nails of Buddhist an- chorite, the other ones were gnawed down 70 the quick.
 Among other things, I've tried the scheme of dipping my finger tips in a colorless and extremely bitter compo- sition, so that when I put my nails to my lips to bite them I'd be reminded of my resolution by the bitter taste of my fingers. But found 1t about as hard to remember to Keep my finger tips dipped in this fluid as it was to re- member not to bite the nails, and so there I was. Also, for time, I em- ployed .he plan of keeping my finger tips encased in thin patent metal tips. made for the purpose. but these things aroused so much curiosity among my patients and forced me to answer so many questions that I had to give up that scheme. Moreover. the same difficulty about remembering to keep the unhandy things on was always present
 'I recently saw it stated In a French medical journal of the greatest relia- bility that fully two-thirds of all the school children of France are addicted to the practice of biting their finger nails, and the article expressed the writer's alarm over this fact. as show ing that nervous diseases must be un- derm!ninE the French race. While I don't agrec witS the nervous disease part of this. the showing Is certainly a curious one. A very small proportion of the school children of this country, so far as rcy observe tion goes, bite their nails. But I do not believe that nervousness has anything to do with the nail biting hab