Study of a case of two-handed synchronous writing / by George M. Gould.

  • Gould, George Milbrey, 1848-1922.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Study of a case of two-handed synchronous writing / by George M. Gould. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    34/36 (page 34)
    track railroads would then order trains to pass one day to the right and the next to the left, and their locomotive engineers would then sit half the time on the right side of their cabs, and the other half on the left side. It took a whole generation time of experiments and mechanics to learn that the engi- neer must stand or sit on the right side of his engine or cab in order that he could look ahead with his right or dominant eye only, and without sticking his entire head out, as he would have to do if he sat or stood on the left side. The railroad men never learned why this is so, do not know why to-day, and to make the desirable change in two American left-passing double-track railroads, while it would finally avoid expense and accidents, would cost at once many millions of dollars. Thousands of years ago knights and men fighting on foot or horseback had to approach and pass each other on the left in order to strike or spear each other with the right hand while the shield-hand held the shield or the reins. The railway engineer, civil or locomo- tive, does not know that the knight was his right- handed and righteyed progenitor and endower. A flood of light is thrown upon history, sociology, and medicine, especially upon psychology, neurol- ogy, and psychiatry, by lefthandedness and its se- quels. Of every million born at least 30,000, prob- ably more, are naturally lefthanded, so that in the United States there are nearly 3,000,000, and in the world over 45,000,000, thus handicapped. An in- definite proportion of these have been, or are being doubly cursed by the efforts of the foolish parent or teachers to make them righthanded. Sad sugges- tions and illustrations of the baleful results of the work of these improvers of Nature exist in such simple facts as that right, which should mean only dextral or righthanded, has come to mean good,