1907.] on Dexterity and the Bend Sinister. 635 



be the Coustrophedon, or ploughing writing, in which each hand 

 moves backwards and forwards on the paper. 



I suppose there is no body of men who have more dihgently 

 cultivated ambidexterity than the surgeons, for in some of their work, 

 especially that of the ophthalmic surgeon, it would apparently be of 

 the highest utility to l)e able to use either hand, and many of them 

 have attained to remarkable proficiency in the ambidextral use of 

 surgical instruments ; but very few, if any of them, I beheve, pretend 

 to or practise ambidexterity outside the operating theatre or hospital 

 ward. On this subject Lord Lister writes to me : " As a student 

 aiming at surgery and much admiring Liston, I followed his precept, 

 and the way in which 1 endeavoured to cultivate ambidexterity was 

 by holding the knife in my left hand and the fork in my right when 

 cutting up meat, etc. on a plate, and I remember being struck with 

 the fact that the right hand was at least as awkward in the use of the 

 fork as the left was in the use of the knife." 



There is even a suspicion that ambidexterity may sometimes be a 

 drawback to a surgeon. That gifted surgeon, the late Mr. John 

 Duncan, of Edinburgh, wrote to me : " The only surgeon 1 know or 



have known to be ambidextrous is G . He is so in all manual 



actions, so far as surgery is concerned, and it is, I think rather an 

 embarrassment to him than otherwise, as he seems always uncertain 

 which hand he had better use." 



That is a pregnant remark, for the result of general and systematic 

 ambidextral training must, I believe, be to reduce the person submitted 

 to it to a state of wobble. 



The mistake in ambidextral philosophy is in imagining that the 

 left hand has been reduced to slavery, or at least to servile conditions 

 of labour. But that is, I will not say a terminological inexactitude, 

 but incorrect. It is not really inferiority and superiority we have to 

 deal with as much as difference. To speak of the left hand — owing, 

 no doubt, largely to religious metaphors embalmed in language — as 

 the dishonoured hand, the unlucky hand, the crippled hand, the 

 supplementary, gauche, uncouth, clumsy hand, is all wrong. Its role 

 is in some respects humbler than that of the right hand, but it 

 is not less essential to complete manual efficiency. " They also serve 

 who only stand and wait," and the left hand contributes its fair share 

 to human achievement. If the right hand holds the pen, the left 

 steadies the paper ; if the right hand twangs the string, the left grasps 

 the bow and props the arrow ; if the right wields the cue, the left 

 provides the bridge ; if the right drives the plane, the left guides it 

 and sweeps away the shavings ; if the right sways the bow of the 

 violin, the left supports it and fingers the strings. As our poet 

 has it : 



" Of all the things in this offensive world, 

 So full of flaws, inversions and caprices, 

 There's nought so truly awkward and ridiculous 

 As a left-handed fiddler." 



