Rocks and Ravel: On the ranges of functions of the human hand

You’ll often read dilettantes in the field of evolution talk about “the” function of this or that organ, structure, or whatever.  I say “dilettantes” because it’s simplistic to think in terms of one function for any part of an organism.

Consider the human hand.  Think about how differently it has to function for these two kinds of people:

1. A rock climber
2. A classical pianist

These two folks have to develop their hands to do two things that are essentially polar opposites.  To wit:

1. rock climber: …needs his fingers to be able to (a) support a lot of weight, for (b) prolonged periods of time, in (c) the same position.
2. classical pianist: …needs his fingers to be able to (a) move rapidly, (b) across a wide range of forces, (c) with great precision.

Being able to keep his fingers in the same spot with a lot of weight on them for a long time is what lets a rock climber figure out his next move without plunging into the abyss–presumably to his depth.  Being able to execute very subtle variations in pressure across a wide variety of speeds (see the English notes below for what the verb to execute means in this context) is what allows a classical pianist to express what we call “emotion” in a piece of music.  “The” function of the hand?  It’s an incredibly complex organ capable of many different functions, you dilettante.  (I’m speaking to some hypothetical wanker who thinks they know something about evolution here, not to you, dear reader.)

I always think about Frank Wilson’s observations on the rock climber versus the pianist in his book The Hand  when I head to Guatemala the first week in August.  I spend one week a year in Antigua, Guatemala, where I serve as an interpreter for a group of surgeons, technicians, nurses, therapists, and anesthesiologists who provide free specialized surgeries for people for whom the almost-free Guatemalan health care system is still too expensive.  A lot of that time I spend with a hand surgeon and with a therapist who specializes in rehabilitation after hand surgery.  Wilson’s observations about the very different kinds of demands that we can place on our hands come to mind in this context because, as Dr. David Kim, our hand surgeon, puts it,

The number one goal in hand surgery is restoration of function.  People can differ quite a bit in terms of the kinds of functions that they carry out with their hands, so I don’t necessarily address the same problems with the same surgical technique.  A tailor and a farm worker need to be able to do very different things in order to return to the normal functions of their lives, and I keep that in mind when I am determining the best surgical approach to addressing their problems.

The majority of people in Guatemala have two options in life:

1. Do manual labor
2. Starve to death

So, when the Surgicorps team gives someone back the lost function of their hand, it is not just a surgical procedure–it is allowing that person to not starve to death, and perhaps to make it possible for their children to go to school–and thus have a few more options in life than the two that I listed above.  Would you like to help support what we do here?  Our volunteers pay all of the costs of their own involvement–we buy our own plane tickets, pay for our food and lodging, etc., and donate all of our services.  Your donation goes straight to supporting surgeries, pre- and post-op care for our patients, and lodging for the family members that accompany them here.  You don’t have to give much to help a lot–$250 US pays all costs of surgery for one patient, and $10 US pays for all of the pain medications that we will send patients home with the entire week.  Follow this link to donate–a small donation is a great way to make your day better!

English notes

to execute: one of the meanings of this word is to perform or carry out some action.  How I used it in the post: Being able to execute very subtle variations in pressure across a wide variety of speeds is what allows a classical pianist to express what we call “emotion” in a piece of music. 

to death: this prepositional phrase is a structurally unusual way of expressing the idea of dying due to a specific cause or being killed by a specific method.  Here are some examples from Sketch Engine, purveyor of fine linguistic corpora and the tools for searching them.

• 400 people then broke through the barrier and stamped the soldiers to death. “Stamped…to death” means that they killed the soldiers by stomping on them.  (Yes: “to stomp.”  From Merriam-Webster: “to strike or beat forcibly with the bottom of the foot.”)
• Anything approved today will not be implemented until next August at the earliest, but people cannot be left without aid for such a long period unless they are supposed to starve to death. “To starve to death” means to die by starvation.
• On July 10th , 1941, in the Polish town of Jedwabne, at least 340 Jewish citizens were murdered – burned to death in a locked barn after having been publicly beaten and humiliated in the town square – not, as one might have expected, by the country’s Nazi occupiers but by a group of twenty-three Polish men, acting, more or less enthusiastically (“more” seems likely), at the instigation of the German gendarmerie, who were on hand to shoot down anyone who tried to escape from the barn. “Burned to death” means that they were killed by burning.