Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 October 1885 — Helpful Surgery for Pianists. [ARTICLE]

Helpful Surgery for Pianists.

The skill of a well-known physician in this city has come to the rescue of a number of prominent pianists and musicaTstudents in a most singular and interesting particular. To comprehend this assistance rendered by surgical science to musicians, a very well known fact must be understood. When the middle finger and the little finger are brought down by the flexor muscles, and their ends are held down against the keys of a piano, for the purpose, of producing continuous sounds, and it is necessary to extend and then flex or ’pend the third finger in order to produce accompanying sounds, it will be found that the third finger cannot be very effectively used, unless after long and constant practice, and often not then.

The reason for this stiffness is simple. The tendons of the little and middle finger are connected with the tendons of the third finger by lateral or accessory tendons, so that when the two former fingers are held down, the accessory tendons hold in check the power of the muscular fibers operating upon the tendon of the third finger, and thus it can be but clumsily used. Such accessory tendons are sometimes found in one hand, sometimes in the other, but usually in the right hand. They are a source of serious annoyance and difficulty to musical performers. Dr. William S. Forbes, the Demonstrator of Anatomy in Jefferson College, has performed an operation that severed or cut off the accessory tendons from the little and middle fingers. The liberation of the ring-finger was complete. The ball of the finger could be elevated an inch further from the plane of the hand, and the patient expressed his gratification at the extended and greater facility with which he could use the ring-finger on the keys of his piano.— Philadelphia Record.