430 NATURAL EXPEDIENTS FOR SUPPLYING 
tion which may have occurred; — these nearly instinctive 
efforts being, at the same time, aided by an admirable law 
of our frame, by which it is ordained, that whenever, either 
from choice or necessity, the increased energies of any 
particular organ are required, a corresponding and extra- 
ordinary degree of ability in accomplishing the motions re- 
quired, is the undeviating consequence. 
I need not remind the Society that there are on record 
several cases of individuals, who, having sustained from 
birth a complete privation of their arms, have rendered 
their toes such excellent substitutes for fingers, that, with 
these members, they have executed works of art, such as 
are ranked amongst the most difficult of manual operations. 
It is also no less remarkable, that these persons, although 
existing at different intervals of time, and dwelling in dif- 
ferent parts of the globe, should, in the course of remedying 
their deficiency, have severally availed themselves of similar 
natural expedients.* In judging, then, from these in- 
stances, it would appear that a more than common in^ 
crease of skill in the use of the toes, ought to be considered 
as a result constantly attending the total loss of botli 
arms ; for which reason, it may not appear too trivial an 
employment, if we endeavour to ascertain the resources to 
which a human being may have been urged, who has sus- 
tained from birth a privation of the arms rather less than 
that of the instances cited, being of such a kind, that, 
instead of taking place immediately below the shoulder 
joints, it has commenced from the elbows. An instance, 
however, where the fore-arms and hands have been wanting 
from birth, and the stumps of the ossa humeri brought into 
action, may be deemed as of the rarest description ; only 
* A few of these cases, which 1 have collected, are subjoined as an Ap- 
pendix to this Memoir. 
