Waterbury evening Democrat., 1906-07-27
CHEW FINGER NAILS.

"Heredity? Look at these finger nails of mine," said physician of somewhat stolid exterior to report CT. Observe that every one of them is bitten down to the quick. They've been bitten down to the quick ever since can remember and in spite of everything I could do. I've tried most all of the schemes that have been invented to stop folks from gnawing on their nails, and yet here are my disgracefully bitten 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 existence that she simply could 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 father. in turn, told her that his mother had tried all of her life with out success to do away with the habit of biting her nails.
 So you see that in my case the nail biting habit is distinctly heredi- tary.
 My curiosity as to this matter led me to investigate 1t in the cases of other persons. all of them in my prac- tice. who had the nail biting habit, and I found that in every case l tack led their immediate progenitors, on one side or the other, had the nail biting habit.
 There's no reason whatever why should bite my nails. It is asserted by some specialists in nerve diseases that the practice springs from a cer- tain form of nervousness. but I doubt if that can be true. for I am actually the least nervous person on top of the globe so far as 1 know. My mother was one of the most com posed persons of her sex I ever knew I have long since given up trying to break myself of the practice, which. being an involuntary and unconscious one. is almost impossible to control. I have with the greatest difficulty leontrived at times to let four or five of my finger nails grow, permitting them to attain an almost foolish length because was so proud of them: but at the same time that these long ones looked like the hooked finger nails of a Buddhist an- chorite the other ones were gnaved down to the quick.
 Among other things I've tried the NmnA. -e Iaa.zE-- a- ~E... s.. la coiorless and extremely bitter com position. SO that when I put my nails to my lips to bite them I'd be re- minded of my resolution by the bit ter taste of my fingers. But I found it about as hard to remember 10 keep my finger tips dipped in this liquid as it was to remember not to bite the nails. and so there I was. Also for a time I employed the plan of keeping my finger tips incased in thin patent metal tips, made for the purpose. but these things aroused so much curiosity among my patients and forced me to answer 90 many questions that had to give up that scheme Moreover. the same dificul- ty about remembering to keep the un- handy things on was always present
 'I recently saw 1t stated in a French medical journal of the great est reliability that fully two-thirds of all of the school children of France are addicted to the practice of biting their finger nails. and the article ex- pressed the writer's alarm over this fact as showing that nervous disease must be undermining the French race While I don't agree with the nervous disease part of this. the skoring is certainly a curious one '-wzshington Post