Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 November 1895 — All Are Without Fingers. [ARTICLE]

All Are Without Fingers.

In a Lincolnshire village in England lives a family who suffer under the curious deformity of being fingerless. This peculiarity. says Pearson’s Weekly, does not appear to he one of those freaks of nature which may appear in one individual and not be transmitted to the next generation. From what can be learned, the singularity has existed in the family so far as history or tradition extends, and there seems at present no signs of its dying out, as the grandchildren are as devoid of fingers as their grandsire. The hands of this remarkable family present the appearance of having had the fingers amputated or chopped off roughly and unevenly below the second joint, leaving a short stump. There is no nail or hard substance, and were it not for the absence of anything like a cicatrice a casual observer would conclude that the defect was due to an accident; but, as though nature had attempted to compensate for the abseuee of fingers, the thumbs are abnormally large and strong. The family are in other respects fully endowed by nature and do uot appear to suffer the disadvantages the absence of fingers might be expected to entail. One of the daughters, aged 20, can write, sew, kuit, and is in every way as dexterous audaeeomplished as other girls of her age and station. When asked if she “did not find it awkward to be fingerless,” she replied: “No! If you had never had fingers, you would not know you needed them.” The only drawback that seems to be occasioned is the curiosity the absence of fingers evokes from strangers.