490 THE HAND AS AN UNRULY MEMBER. 
of his life, to have attached little value to the comparison 
with each other of parts of the same body; but we could 
wish that he had ignored the subject entirely, rather than 
that in 1835 he should have lent the weight of his author- 
ity to the views of Vicq d’Azyr, as is shown by the fol- 
lowing passage: “C’st la droite d’une paire qu'il faut 
comparer a la gauche de Pautre.” * 
` Blandin, like Vicq d’Azyr and Cuvier, let the hand and 
fingers alone, the thumb still remaining opposite the little 
toe; but, in 1846, this inconsistency was pointed out by 
Turenne, who, desirous of making all things as harmo- 
nious as possible, in imagination, cuts off the two hands a 
little above the wrist, and transposes them, which of course 
brings the thumb on the inner borders, and opposite the 
great toe (Fig. 1 and 5); nor is it, perhaps, surprising 
that he should have regarded this as an improvement upon 
the proceedings of Vicq d’Azyr, and we ought rather to be 
gratified that, after putting the left arm in place of the 
right, and again changing the hands, he did not see fit to 
invert the entire limb, fasten the fingers upon the shoulder- 
blade, and declare the end of the arm-bone to be homolo- 
gous with the great toe. Indeed, the whole proceeding is 
so extraordinary, that, but for the gravity with which it is 
proposed, one would incline to regard it as a burlesque, 
intended to bring the original view into ridicule. Yet 
only ten years ago, the doctrine of Vicq d’Azyr was 
again, though we hope for the last time, revived. 
~. The errors in this view consist in the assumptions: 
1. That the thumb corresponds with the great toe. 
2. That the two limbs are parallel. 3. That it is either 
necessary or proper to compare the arm of one side with 
the leg of the ata side. 
Sate a + z p 
Lah Pe sey eee f the other.” 
