Left hand

“ If the attention of physiologists devoted to cerebral investigations is specially turned to the present aspect of research, cases of well-marked left-handed patients, or what is manifestly of even [Pg 211] greater significance, of exceptionally dexterous right-handed patients, in hospitals, asylums, and gaols, will from time to time present themselves. It has indeed been affirmed that left-handedness prevails among the “light-fingered” experts who find frequent lodging in our gaols. ”

“ Under no enforcement of a violation of his innate impulses does the left-handed person ever exchange hands. He acquires an educated right hand and retains the dexterity of the left. In those cases where, by reason of injury or disease, the sufferer is compelled to resort to the neglected hand even late in life, it proves quite possible to train it to sufficient aptitude for all ordinary requirements. ”

“ If the tendency in their practice to use the right hand is natural, that is to say, innate or congenital, then there need be no nice distinctions in affirming it. But on any clearly defined physiological deductions of right-handedness from the disposition of the organs of motion or circulation, or any other uniform relation of the internal organs and the great arteries of the upper limbs, left-handedness becomes mysterious, if not inexplicable, unless on the assumption of a corresponding reversal of organic structure ”

“ When you say that left-footedness is (only) as frequent as left-handedness, I am quite sure you are in error. I remember well, when I was a boy, observing the fact among labouring men engaged in what was called in Ireland ‘sodding’ potatoes, in ridges about five feet wide, instead of planting in drills, that in any given number of men, from four up to a dozen, right and left-footedness prevailed about equally. ”

“ But, like most other right-handed reviewers of the phenomena of left-handedness, he fails to appreciate the bearings of his own argument in the case of a left-handed person conforming in many ways to the usage of the majority, yet instinctively giving the preference to the left hand. He dwells on the fact that very few left-handed persons have learned to write with the left hand, and that those who can do not write nearly so well with it as with the right hand. ”

“ Such cases, however, amount to no more than evidence of the extent to which the left hand may be educated, and so made to perform all the functions of the right hand. To one, indeed, familiar by practical experience with the exceptional facilities and the impediments of the left-handed, it is curious to observe the difficulty experienced by a highly intelligent scientific student of the phenomena, to appreciate what seems to the ordinary left-handed man not only natural but inevitable. ”

“ The left-handed man is nearly always ambidextrous, though with an instinctive preference for the left hand in any operation requiring either special dexterity or unusual force. Hence his right hand, [Pg 121] though less in use than that of the right-handed man, is in no such condition of habitual inertia as the other’s left hand. Again, a large number give the preference to the right hand from a mere compliance with the practice of the majority ”

“ I have repeatedly met with cases of ladies who use the needle skilfully with the left hand; but the results of inquiries addressed to musicians and music teachers indicate that in the great majority of cases the cultivation of the left, as the weaker or less skilful hand, has to be sedulously enforced in the training of the female organist and pianist. It is because left-handed pianists are rare that their exceptional dexterity is noted, as in the case of a Canadian lady referred to above: “She had great advantages from her left-handedness. ”

“ But when it comes to flinging a stone or other object a long distance, I always use the left hand as coming the most natural. There are two things which I cannot possibly do with my right hand, and that is to drive a nail, or to carve, cut, or whittle. ”

“ No theory is worthy of serious consideration which deals with left-handedness as an exceptional deviation from habitual action; as where, in his earlier treatise, Dr. Buchanan expressed the belief that many instances of left-handedness are “merely cases of ambidextrousness, when the habit of using the left side, in whatever way begun, has given to the muscles of that side such a degree of development as enables them to compete with the muscles of the right side, in spite of the mechanical disadvantages under which they labour.” ”

“ Even in persons who are left-handed naturally, so that the right side of the brain may be assumed to control the reasoning faculties and their expression, he argues that the left side of the brain “can be so educated that the right hand, which that side of the brain controls, produces a better handwriting than that by the left hand, though that is controlled by the better developed brain.” ”

“ The left hand, with its unconsciously developed power, of course usually unexercised, of mirror-writing, affords only a very crude illustration of what this implies, and a very imaginative illustration is in the flashing of the morning light as it reaches height after height of the beholder's outstretched world. ”

“ Each pair carrying up the work of a ridge required to be right and left-footed men. I am myself left-footed; and of eight brothers, I believe about four were left and four right-footed. [Pg 170] Sir Charles Bell, in asserting that ‘no boy, unless he is left-handed, hops on the left foot,’ asserts far more than the fact. I believe every boy will hop on his spade foot; at least I do so, and I am not left-handed ”

“ Besides this, we occasionally find a person who is left-handed, as it is called; that is, his left hand and arm are as much larger and stronger than the right, as the right is usually stronger than the left. ”

“ So soon as the child is old enough to be affected by such influences, the fastening of its clothes, the handling of knife and spoon, and of other objects in daily use, help to confirm the habit, until the art of penmanship is mastered, and with this crowning accomplishment—except in cases of strongly marked bias in an opposite direction,—the left hand is relegated to its subordinate place as a supplementary organ, to be called into use when the privileged member finds occasion for its aid. ”

“ The 'left' hand, as distinguished from the right, is the hand which we 'leave,' inasmuch as for twenty times we use the right hand, we do not once employ it; and it obtains its name from being 'left' unused so often. ”

“ Having determinately arrived at the conclusion that the source of right-handedness, and so of the exceptional occurrence of left-handedness, is to be sought for in the preponderant development of one or other hemisphere of the brain, and that, therefore, the test has to be sought in the examination of the brains of persons of exceptional dexterity, whether in the use of their right or left hand, the difficulty has been to obtain the desired objects of study. ”

“ In reality, a strongly developed left-handedness is, equally with a strongly developed right-handedness, an indication of exceptional dexterity. Such skill as that of the left-handed slingers of the tribe of Benjamin is in no way exceptional. All truly left-handed, as well as all truly right-handed persons, are more likely to be dexterous than those who are unconscious of any strong impulse to the use of either hand. The bias, whether to the right or the left, is, I feel assured, the result of special organic aptitude. ”

“ But because we do not use the left hand much in doing things, we lose the power of using it quite as well as we use the right hand. Little boys and girls should practice using the left hand. Then if by some accident the right hand is lost, they would not be quite helpless. ”

“ He was left-handed, his hands being very large: he often made exhibition of the power of his left hand in grasping and crushing anything placed within it, in which exploit he surpassed all competitors. ”

“ On the other hand, it is no less true that, while the experience of every thoroughly left-handed person shows the possibility of training both hands to a capacity for responding to the mind with promptness and skill: at the same time it is apparent that in cases of true left-handedness there is an organic specialisation which no enforced habit can wholly supersede. ”

“ There is no doubt, however, that it is (in right-handed people) on the left side, and little doubt that it consists of elements of the hand-and-arm region specialized for that service, The symptom may exist when there is little or no disability in the hand for other uses. If it does not get well, the patient usually educates his right hemisphere, i.e. learns to write with his left hand. ”

“ The right hand is made to turn the left hand over as far as possible, and with a severe wrench. Then the left hand retaliates upon the right. All depends upon the tightness of the grip. The wrists are benefited almost as much as are the hands. ”

“ But it is not difficult to conceive of some resolute combatant, endowed with the capacity of a leader, and conscious of his own skill in the use of his weapons in his dexterous left hand, banding together under his leadership a company selected on account of their manifesting the same exceptional dexterity. With this as the indispensable requisite, he was able to muster a body of seven hundred marksmen, all men of his own tribe, every one of whom was left-handed, and could sling stones at a hair’s-breadth and not miss. To the naturally left-handed man such dexterity is in no degree surprising. ”

“ Yet they naturally follow from it; for so soon as volition comes into conscious play, and the hand obeys the mind, and becomes an organ of the will, the psychical element is felt to dominate over the physical; including that very force of will which aims at eradicating the exceptional left-handedness, and enforcing an undeviating submission to the law of the majority.
It is unquestionably of first interest to the psychologist to inquire not only why the child, at the early stage in which a choice of hands is manifested, should prefer the right hand for all strong movements ”

“ The left hand secretes the object in its palm, while the fingers are allowed to fall loosely down, appearing to retain nothing under them. At the very same moment the right hand must be closed, and remain in shape as if containing the object, with the second joints of the fingers pointed toward the spectators, and the back of the hand toward the ground. ”

“ The left hand operates a progressive but continual tension upon the bit, while the right hand corrects with the snaffle the false position possible at the beginning and thus secures the flexion at the atlas only. ”