The Hand

Chiromancy and Physiognomy. The Hand in Figurative Speech. The High and Low Type of Hand.—The hand is in the highest degree a human characteristic. It is man's organ of grasp and of the sense of touch, while in animals these two functions are relegated to the mouth. The hand has always claimed the attention not only of scientists but of all mankind without distinction. Attempts have been made to discover the secrets of human personality from the hand, and a whole art has been built up, called chiromancy, which endeavours to read from the hand man's destiny and psychic personality, just as physiognomy was the art of interpreting the character from the face.

Chiromancy was an accredited art as far back as the days of ancient Greece, and it also had a great vogue in the middle ages; while to-day it is out of date and superseded, or perhaps is destined to rise again in some new form, just as physiognomy has risen again in the study of "expressions" of the face and the imprints which they leave behind them. Scientists also have made the hand the object of their careful consideration; and the result of their researches shows that the hand really does contain individual characteristics that are not only interesting but, up to a certain point, are revelations of personality. A written word, a clasp of the hand, may furnish documents for the study of the individual. Graphology, for instance, is naturally related to the functional action and to the characteristics of the hand itself. Gina Lombroso has recently made a study of the hand-clasp in its relation to character; when a haughty person offers his hand, he has the appearance of wishing to thrust you from him; the miser barely offers the tips of his fingers; the timid man yields a moist and chilly hand to your touch; the loyal friend makes you feel the whole vigor of his hand in its cordial pressure.

In the gesture we have an individual form of linguistic expression. Consequently, man reveals himself, not alone through his creative part, the head, but also through its obedient servant, the hand. "The hand is gesture, gesture is visible speech, speech is the soul, the soul is man, the soul of man is in the hand."

Furthermore, we can judge from the hand whether a man is fitted for work or not; and it is to work that the hand owes its human importance. The first traces of mankind upon earth are not remains of skeletons, but remains of work—the splintered stone. The whole history of social evolution might be called the history of the hand. To say that the hand is the servant of the intelligence is to express the truth in too restricted a way, because the intelligence is nourished and developed through the products of the hand, as by degrees the work of the latter transformed the environment. Hence, the history of our intellectual development, like that of our civilization, is based upon the creative work evolved by the collaboration of hand and head. And so, in the orphan asylums, we have the children sing the hymn to the hand, which is a hymn to labour and to progress:

"Our hand is good for every task."

All the solemn acts of life require the cooperation and sanction of the hand. We take oath with the hand; marriage is performed by uniting the hands of the bridal pair; in proof of friendship or to seal a compact, we clasp hands. The word hand has come to be often used in a symbolic sense in many expressive phrases possessing a social and moral significance: "Take heed that the hand of the Lord does not fall upon you;" "Pilate washed his hands;" "to put oneself into another's hands;" "to have a lavish hand;" "to sit with idle hands" or "with the hands in the pockets;" "one hand washes the other;" "to have a hand in the pie;" "to turn one's hand to something;" "to lend a final hand;" "to speak with the hand on the heart;" "to believe the evidence of one's hands," etc.

And this high and symbolic significance given to the hand dates back even to bible times:

Solomon says: "The length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour" (Prov. 3, 16).

And Moses: "Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your soul and bind them for a sign upon your hand" (Deut. 11, 18).

Attempts have recently been made to describe the "psychological types" of the human hand. Zimmermann, for instance, studies two types of hand: the high type, delicate, small, slender, with rounded, tapering fingers, and convex nails; a hand which would indicate a fine sensibility, delicate and refined sentiments, a well balanced mind, a high degree of intelligence, a strong and noble character. And there is the low type, coarse, short and stocky, with thick fingers and flat nails; an index of sluggish sensibilities, vulgar sentiments and a low order of intelligence, a weak will and apathetic character.

In accordance with the theories of mechanics, the type of hand has been considered in relation to its organic use and morphological adaptation. In general, the hand used in the coarser forms of work is of the low type; the high type of hand is that required for nimble and fine movements, in which there is need of the successive concurrence of all those delicate little groups of muscles which are able to act independently and thus give to this organ the marvelous and subtle variety of movements which distinguish it. In regard to dimensions, the large, heavy hand would betoken use, and the little hand disuse. Therefore, the small hand may be considered as a stigma of parasitism, a distinction which at the present day has lost its nobility. Excepting in so far as the "brain workers," who make themselves useful without employing their hands, may still show a distinctive smallness of these members.

We should not, however, adhere solely either to the psychological theory of the hand, or to the theory of adaptation; it is necessary to consider the characteristics of the hand from several different points of view.

Dimensions.—The dimensions of the hand bear a constant relation to the stature and to certain partial dimensions of the body, while the various parts of the hand preserve constant reciprocal proportions.

As far back as in the time of Vitruvius it was known that the human hand is related to the stature in the proportion of 10 to 100. This is a very important fact to know, because the proportion varies in the inferior races and in the anthropoid apes, the descent in the scale showing a corresponding increase of length of hand relatively to the stature. Thus, for example, in the Mongolian races the proportional length of the hand is 12.50, and in the higher apes it equals 18. Consequently too long a hand is in itself an anomaly that indicates a low type of man; it is to be classed with those anomalies that were formerly regarded as atavistic reversions, phenomena of absolute retrogression in the biological scale.

Relations between the Hand and the other Dimensions of the Body.—The closed fist, taking the extreme outside measurement between the metacarpophalangeal articulations, corresponds to the breadth of the heart.

The length of the hand corresponds to the height of the visage, and also to the distance intervening between the sternal incisura and the auricular foramen; it is also equal to the distance between the two nipples, and therefore also corresponds to the depth of the chest.

There may be hands which are either excessively large or much too small, and that are really marks of degeneration. An excessive volume of these members is called megalomelia, and an excessive smallness oligomelia.

We may encounter an extremely small hand quite as often in the son of an alcoholic labourer as in the son of a degenerate aristocrat; frequently men whose parents were mentally deficient have small, delicate, almost effeminate hands.

The Proportions between the Various Segments of the Hands.—The length of the middle finger, measured from the digito-palmar plica or fold, ought to equal the length of the palm.

Hence the index of the palm should be the proportion between the length of the palm itself and the length of the middle finger. This proportion is of importance because it has certain human characteristics; as a matter of fact, in the anthropoid apes the metacarpus is much longer than the fingers and the palm has a far lower index than that of man. In degenerates (thieves) the hand is frequently narrow and long.

The Proportions of the Fingers.—If the first and second articulations of the fingers are flexed, leaving the third extended, we find that the extremity of the middle finger reaches to the point where the thenar and hypothenar eminences (fleshy prominences at base of palm) are nearest to each other.

This basic point is only approximate and serves to tell us whether the middle finger is normal. The middle finger serves as a measure for the others, as follows:

It often happens that the development of the ulnar side of the hand—the little finger, or both little and ring finger together—is defective. Sometimes the little finger is not only extremely small, but a special malformation renders it shorter still when the hand is open; the second phalanx remains flexed, and cannot be extended. Combined with the shortness of such fingers there is also an extreme slenderness—cubital oligodactylia. It is a far rarer thing to find similar anomalies in the case of the index-finger. The thumb, on the contrary, is sometimes extremely short, in consequence of which it has slight opposability.

Functional Characteristics.—What characterises the functional action of the human hand is the opposability of the thumb. There ought to be a perfect movement of opposability of the thumb in respect to all the other fingers; but many imbecile children accomplish this movement imperfectly. The mobility of the thumb is associated with a group of muscles situated at its base which forms the great tenar eminence of the palm, opposite which, in corresponding relation to the little finger is the small hypothenar eminence. An insufficient development of these palmar eminences represents a serious malformation, which entails functional disturbances. The hand of the monkey is flat.

The Nails.—We have already seen that in the high type of hand the nails should be convex and long, and that in the low type, on the contrary, they are short and flat.

The normal nail should extend to an even level with the fingertip. Manual labour should normally serve the purpose of keeping the nails worn down; but we, who are not hand-labourers, must use the scissors, in order to maintain the normal state.

For, if they were not worn down, the nails would attain an enormous length, like the nails of certain kings of savage tribes, who as a badge of authority have such long nails that their hands are necessarily kept motionless; these kings must in consequence be waited on, even for the smallest need, and actually become the slaves of their own nails, which might be shattered by any sudden movement on the part of their royal possessor. Long nails, therefore, are a sign of idleness, while at the same time they demand a great deal of attention. Accordingly, let us repudiate the fashion of long nails.

As a form of anomaly, we sometimes meet with nails of such exaggerated length that they have the aspect of claws—onychogryposis; or, again, an almost total absence of nails, which are reduced to a narrow transverse strip—this characteristic is often found in idiots, and is aggravated by the fact that from childhood such persons have had the habit of "biting their nails."

Sometimes the nails are exceedingly dense, or actually consist of several superimposed layers, so rich in pigment that they lose their characteristic transparency.

This condition is due to trophic disorders of the nails.

Teratology and Various Anomalies.—There are certain monstrosities that sometimes occur in connection with the hand, such as hexadactylism and polydactylism, or hands with six or more fingers; or else hands with less than five fingers—syndactylism. There may even be a congenital absence of a phalanx, with a consequent notable shortness of the finger—brachydactylism.

Another sort of anomaly frequently found in deficients consists of an excessive development of the interdigital membrane, to the extent of giving the hand the appearance of being web-fingered. An anomaly of minor importance consists in a distortion of the fingers; the little finger has one of its phalanges turned backward. All the fingers ought to be in contact throughout their whole length, and not leave open spaces between them.

Lines of the Palms.—The lines of the palms, which used to be of so much importance in chiromancy, are now taken into consideration even in anthropology, being studied in normal and abnormal man, and also in the hands of monkeys. The lines of the palms are three in number. The one which follows the curve of the tenar eminence is known in chiromancy as the line of life, and, if long, deep and unbroken, was supposed to denote good health and the prospect of a long life; in anthropology it is called the biological line. The second crease, which ought to meet the former between the thumb and the index-finger, is the line of the head, or cephalic line, and in chiromancy its union with the line of life was supposed to denote a well-balanced character.

The line highest up, which begins between the index- and middle finger and extends to the extreme margin of the palm, is the line of the heart or the cardiac line, which in chiromancy is supposed to indicate the emotional development of the individual. These lines taken together form a semblance of the letter M, and are characteristically and gracefully curved. It is considered as an anomaly, to be met with among degenerates and even in mongoloid idiots, to lack any of these lines (numerical reduction) or to have their arrangement distinctly horizontal, and reminiscent of the hand of the monkey.

If we trace backward in the zoological scale, we find as a matter of fact that to begin with, there were no lines in the palms, and then there appeared a single crease high up, such as we still find in the Cebus. In the human hand Carrara has recently made a study of these anomalies, distinguishing several types. In the first type there is a single transverse furrow. In the second type there are two furrows which, however, follow a definitely straight and horizontal direction and consequently are parallel. In a third type a single transverse furrow is associated with a very deep longitudinal furrow running from the carpus to the base of the index- and middle finger—a form that Carrara has found only in criminals. Nevertheless, many idiots exhibit a similar longitudinal furrow, due to a peculiar development of the palmar aponeurosis.

Fig. 129.—Imprint of human hand, showing papillary lines on palm and fingers.

The disposition of the furrows in the palm is not strictly symmetrical in the two hands; in fact, it is said in chiromancy that the right hand represents our natural character, and our left hand the character which we have acquired in the course of living.

Papillary Lines.—For some time past the papillary lines have been attracting the attention of students, in regard to their earliest appearance (in the zoological scale), their disposition and complications. They were already spoken of by Malpighi and Purkinje. Alix has investigated the first appearance, in the animal scale, of these lines in the thoracic and pelvic limbs, and concludes: "The greater or lesser development of the papillary lines seems to bear a relation to the higher or lower position of the group to which the animal belongs, the perfection of its hand and the degree of its intelligence."

Morselli has studied the disposition of these lines in monkeys. We know that the papillary lines bear a relation to the exquisite delicacy of the sense of touch. The primates (higher apes) have on their finger-tips patterns that are far simpler than our own, resembling geometric figures, among which the principal ones are the triangle, the circle, and forms resembling the cross-section of an onion. In the normal human hand, on the contrary, it should be impossible to distinguish any closed figure. The resulting designs, which are very fine and complicated, are not uniform on all the fingers, but differ from finger to finger in proportion to the degree of evolution in a given hand. For example, there is a certain uniformity of design in cases of arrested mental development (imbeciles, epileptics, etc.). This variety of designs produces individual characteristics which are utilized in criminal anthropology for purposes of identification; hence, it is highly important to be able to take impressions of the papillary lines.

Professor Sante de Sanctis has quite recently invented a practical method of preserving papillary imprints by the aid of photography.