Is Man a Lopsided Animal?

1895

The Subject Discussed From a Variety of Interesting Standpoints.

Man at best is an ungainly animal. His head is an irregular spheroid; his eyes are not alike or of equal efficiency; one shoulder is higher than its neighbor; one hand and one foot are larger than their corresponding organ. Despite the fact that the shape, size and color of the ear differ more widely in individuals than any other organ of the human body, they are probably more alike on the same head than any other of the twin organs. If one ear is delicate in shade, the other will be the same; if one looks like a dried fig or a conchshell, the other is likewise so. With the eyes, however, matters are different. One eye is nearly always more open than its friend over the bridge, while in many cases people, while apparently looking with both eyes, only use one, and makers of firearms, in making guns to order, carefully allow for the right or left sightedness of the sportsman for whom they cater. Broadly speaking, women are more often left sighted than men, and when they do happen to be right sighted they are so in less degree than the sterner sex.

The reason why the left shoulder is frequently farther from Mother Earth than the right lips in the fact that while writing most men rest the left elbow on the table, while in the case of porters loads are carried on the right shoulder. With an ablebodied man there is very little difference in the length of the limbs, but the hands and feet are usually widely different in the matter of size. The right hand is the bigger, while, curiously enough, the left foot covers the greater amount of ground.

Ladies have a certain unreasoning sense of satisfaction when they say that they wear fives in gloves, because, if this is a fact, then the human hand has grown smaller within the last 20 or 30 years, which state of affairs, however, may be questioned when the glovemakers tell their story. Gloves are all marked half a size smaller than they really ought to be, which is the fatal result of the habit in which ladies indulge of almost invariably asking for gloves a size smaller than they can comfortably wear.

The left leg is better developed than the other male carrier on account of the fact that we stand habitually on the left foot and mount a bicycle or horse and kick a man while balancing on the left leg. Most men jump chiefly off the left leg.

Lateral curvature of the spine occurs more frequently to the left than to the right, indicating that the body in sitting is thrown more to the left than to right. This leads to the remark that nothing is more injurious, for the young especially, than to sit for any length of time in one position. — Albany Times-Union.

Hold Up Your Head, For Mental, Physical Stimulation

1916

HOLD UP YOUR HEAD.

It Will Stimulate You Mentally as Well as Physically.

In a letter to Robert Grimshaw of the New York University William Muldoon gives advice that it would be well for every man and woman, boy and girl in America to take to heart. He says:

"I was taught in early manhood not to throw my shoulders back, stick my chest out, draw my stomach in or hold my chin down like a goat preparing to butt, but to always try and touch some imaginary thing with the crown of my head. If one tries to do that — first understands how to try and then tries — he doesn't have to pay any attention to the rest of his physical being. That effort to touch something above him not with his forehead, but with the crown of his head, will keep every particle of his body in the position that nature intended it should be.

"And as a boy I was advised to frequently back up against the wall and make the back of my head, my shoulders, hips, heels all press against the wall at the same time, and in that way get an idea of what was straight, or, in other words, how crooked I was becoming by drooping."

Both to young and old Mr. Muldoon's "hold your head up" suggestion is inspiriting. Try it. The effect physically and mentally is immediate. When the head goes higher the impulse is to deeper breathing. A man finds more elasticity in his limbs. He steps out with more ease. There is more spring to his gait. He isn't a lumbering, shambling creature, but a man alive. With the elevation of the crown of the head there seems to come clearer thinking, a more buoyant feeling and a brighter outlook. — Commerce and Finance.