A Six-Fingered Family

Abstract

IT may interest some of your readers to hear that there is at present living in Brown's Town, Jamaica, a family in whom the possession of six fingers has been hereditary for at least four generations. Unfortunately they consider the sixth finger a deformity, and always amputate it, so that there is very little opportunity of observing it. There is a little girl there however upon whom this operation has not been performed, and I much regret that, as her parents had taken her up into the hills to work in their provision grounds, I could not see her. As I am informed, the sixth finger springs from the little finger knuckle at right angles to the little finger, and when it is free of it, it turns up parallel to the rest, being a little shorter than the little finger, but quite perfect, with nail and two joints. It is bent and extended with the rest on opening or closing the fist.