These results, observed and tested by me countless times, are of the greatest importance to all those who work with their fingers, but more particularly to those engaged in musical pursuits, who, instead of being overwhelmed with fatiguing work as before, will find that by these exercises their studies are facilitated and divested of much of their previous trouble and vexation.
The Wrist.
This joint, which for players on the piano and other instruments is of such great importance (Fig. 2 c), should also be exercised gymnastically; since, by means of the gymnastic exercises here recommended, strength and flexibility will be gained in a very short time, and a great deal of trouble saved. Nor ought it to be overlooked that for all those who work with their fingers, a flexible, pliant wrist is a great help, and that by it all the joints of the hand are made to act harmoniously together.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Anatomists and physicians of great eminence have observed to me, “Your anatomical researches have solved some important questions long held in dispute by physiologists, and are of great practical value.”
CHAPTER IV.
NEGLECT HITHERTO OF THE HAND AND FINGERS.
Many books have been written on gymnastics, but I am not acquainted with one which treats of the gymnastical exercise of the fingers. Why these important members of the human body should until now have been so much overlooked and neglected, it is difficult to understand. For, as Professor Richter in Dresden says, “Next to the more powerful development of the brain, it is almost exclusively the structure and skill of the fingers and hand which raises man above the brute, and has made him ruler of the earth.”
In order, therefore, to heighten the capacities of the human hand, the joints of the hand and fingers should, from early youth, be exercised gymnastically, as much and in as many various ways as possible, partly by free exercises, partly by means of mechanical appliances.
Gymnastics, according to anatomists and physicians, is the stretching, extending, pressing, and training of the muscles, the ligaments, and the limbs of the body.[5]
Flexibility, agility, and strength can be acquired only by means of a regular exercise of the muscles of the body.