The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1906-09-21
WONDERS OF HUMAN HAND.
Serves Many Purposes Unsuspected
BY Its Owner.

Aristotle termed the human hand
the instrument of Instruments,
which enables man to make all 9th.
ers, to manage and apply them to
divers uses. and to produce the most
powerful and most delicate efforts.
The markings on the backs of the
fingers are Of four classes: arches,
loops, whorls, and the composite.
These lines make a pattern which
never changes from infancy to old
age, and which is different in the
case OF every individual. The chances
against two persons fnger-prints
being alike are one in siXty-four bill
ions. This means that if the popula,
ton OF the earth were forty times as
great as it is to-day, you might look
in vain for two people whose finger
N rks w identical.
The fnger-nail of a person in good
health grows at the rate of about
on" sixteenth of an inch each week
slightly more than many authorities
belieye-but during illness or after
an accident or during times of men
tai depression this growth is not
only affected and retarded so far as
its length is concerned, but also as
regards its thickness. The very
ightest illness will thus leave an in
delible mark on the nails, which
may be readily detected as the nail
grows out. Ii one has a sudden at
tack, such as acute rheumatism,
which sends the temperature bound
ing upward to 104 or 105 within the
space Of two or three hours, it will
be found on the nails, indicating the
difference in thickness of growth be-
tween the time when health was en-
joyed and the thin growth Of the III
period.
The palms of the hands and the
soles of the feet are composed OF
cushions OF fat. in order that sudden
jolts aud violent blows may be sue.
cessfully resisted and no injury done
to the muscles and bones under
meath.
The thumb is an unerring index &c
the mind. II a person is trying to
deceive You he viii invariably draw
his thumb in toward the palm. On
the other hand. If he is telling the
truth the thumb will relax and point
away from the palm.
The blind, as we all know, have
the sense of touch most singularly
sensitive. A writer in a medical
contemporary now cites the case of a
post-mortem examination of a blind
man which revealed the fact that in
the nerves at the end of the fingers
well-defned cells OF gray matter had
formed Identical in substance and in
cell formation with the gray matter
of the brain.
The radical difference between the
hand of man and of the monkey lies
in the thumb In the human hand
the thumb has the opposing power"
which means that the thumb can be
made to touch the tip of each or any
of the other fingers on the same
hand; the monkeys thumb is non
opposable.
The white lines which cross the
finger-nails, particularly the thumb
nails, are signs of disturbances In
organism at the time they we're
formed. A German scientists OBJ
servation is that forty-siX per cent.
of the criminals have these lines,
forty-three per cent. of idiots, and
fifty per cent. of lunatics.
The growth of nails is more rapid
in children than in adults, and slow
est in the aged. 1t goes on more
rapidly in summer than in winter, so
that the same nail that is renewed in
one hundred and thirty-two days in
winter requires only one hundred
and sixteen in summer. The increase
of the nails on the right hand is
more rapid than on the left; it also
differs for the different fingers, and
length of the finger, 1t is more rapid
for the middle finger nearly equal
for the two either side of this, slow
er for the little finger, and slowest
for the thumb.
About ninety-four per cent. OF
otherwise normal people use the
right hand in preference to the left;
six per cent. are left-handed, and II
is a curious fact that one-third of the
six per cent. are ambideXtrous.
The fact that there is what is
known as the "thumb center" in the
brain, recognized by all surgeons,
demonstrates the immense import
ance attached to the thumb by medi-
cal science. If there is a tendency
toward paralysis, the physician notes
1t in the thumbs long before the NAL
ady shows itself in other directions.
An operation to avert the calamity
If possible, is frequently performed
on the thumb center" of the brain,
and thumb itself is watched for re-
suits favorable or otherwise. 1t is a
matter of record that the thumbs of
idiots and those mentally weak arc
understood, characterless, and usu-
ally cling closely to the side of the