Untersuchungen über Linkshändigkeit und die funktionellen Differensen der Hirnhälften nebst einem Anhang: Ueber Linkshändigkeit in der deutschen Armee

Abstract

ONE of the most striking features that serve to distinguish man from all other creatures is his ability to learn to execute skilled movements of a much greater variety, complexity, and precision than are attainable by the rest of his order. But an even more interesting human trait is revealed in the fact that in the vast majority of mankind the right hand and the apparatus which controls its movements are more apt to acquire this skill and to develop its innate potentialities to a much higher degree than the left hand is capable of That in a small minority of people this state of affairs is reversed, and the left hand becomes more highly endowed with the inborn aptitude to learn and readiness to perform the more complex and finely adjusted movements, has ever provided food for reflection. For the condition of left-handedness interests not only the student of biology, but also those who concern themselves with educational policy, the devotees of sport, and the “man in the street”; and quite a considerable literature has grown up from the repeated discussions in which this interest has materialised, culminating in this characteristically Teutonic treatise or encyclopædia of all that bears upon the left-handed person, his anatomy, his mental and moral qualities and weaknesses.

Untersuchungen über Linkshändigkeit und die funktionellen Differensen der Hirnhälften nebst einem Anhang: Ueber Linkshändigkeit in der deutschen Armee.

By Dr. Ewald Stier. Pp. iv + 352 + 59. (Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1911.) Price 10 marks.

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