Pedagogical Anthropology, Maria Montessori [online e book reader TXT] 📗
- Author: Maria Montessori
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Loose and Stiff Joints.—Anomalies may also occur in connection with the articulation of the joints. It sometimes happens that they are extremely loose and weak, and allow the bones an excessive play of movement; and, if the lower limbs are thus affected, it increases the difficulty of maintaining equilibrium when standing erect or walking. On the other hand, it may happen that the articulations are too stiff, and consequently render many movements difficult, especially if through an anomalous development of the outer coating of the bone, it results in congenital ankylosis.
Curvature of the Legs.—A special importance attaches to certain alterations undergone by the heads of the bones which contribute to the formation of the knee, because of the curvature of the leg which results from them (rachitis, paralysis). The leg may become bowed outward or inward; when it is bowed inward (knock-knees, genu valgum), the knees strike together in walking; when, on the contrary, it is bowed outward, the result is bow-legs (genu varum), known popularly in Italy as "legs of Hercules," a deformity which in a mild degree may also result from the practice of horse-back riding.
Club-foot (Talipes).—Other deviations from the normal position occur in connection with the foot. Certain paralytic children (Little's disease) walk on the fore part of the foot (talipes equinus, "horse's foot"); in some cases the foot is also turned inward, and consequently such children cross their legs as they walk (talipes equino-varus).
The HandChiromancy 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art as far back as the days of ancient Greece, and it also had a great vogue in the middle ages; while to-day it is out of date and superseded, or perhaps is destined to rise again in some new form, just as physiognomy has risen again in the study of "expressions" of the face and the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:
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:
The index-finger reaches to the base of the nail of the middle finger. The thumb, to the middle of the first phalanx of the middle finger. The ring finger, to the middle of the nail of the middle finger.[47] The little finger, to the third articulation of the ring finger.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
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