HANDICRAFTMANSHIP.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 794, 18 April 1910, Page 4

HANDICRAFTMANSHIP.

. That great surgeon Sir. ' Frederick Treves , has a very suggestive article in the "Nineteenth Century" "on "Are we losing the use of our hands :

. "Looking back to..the dawn of the . : hfiHian7race," ;h9-&i'ys,'..''one can only view-with incredulous wonder the work that has . been" and "thfe'fabric ( that.-has .been-fa^h'ibned'^y-'thgvrestless -animal—man,' >with-'' , hiS- >f tw6 , ''eve'r-busy hands, _in the cou'rso \Of, say, some fifty ,centuries. In the soil upon which Lon- , dpn .stands are still 'to : be-found-'-flint arrow heads andjspear points present the most finished handiwork of the first Londoner—a naked man in a riverside jungly.,-v. Above the ,bed in which these weapons .lie' now rises an undreamed-of city, the folk of which may .be watching the/movements of an airship, while below' the buried javelin heads- -there burrows- an ' electric railway. ... ■ -, - ;

."At the present timenot a .year passes that does, not add some wonder' to the list of things'manufactured. Itmust, not: be' , inferred .from this'that man, as a master handicraft, is be.coining eveiy year more adept. Handicraftinanship has a limit, , just as there is a limit to the power of vision and of, hearing. .Has that-.limit even now been reached, or. is. ify by., any■ possibility, dochning P- In ■ response to the. question Are -we losing the. use of our hands?' I would. venture qji answer in and say..''that we are.' Two of the commonest-handicrafts are those of writing and sewing, but they are, being now rabidly supplanted by the typewriter:- on : the !,one hand, and-the sewing-machine oil; the other, xh-e. finer use ; of tho fingers' is thus becoming lost, ,- so far" 'as these simple crafts, aro. concerned. • ■ <■' • ".Surgery . during' recent'-years has — amazing .advances — advances, which are without a parallel in the history of the art'.'and which 'have been or incalculable.. advantage to ' the sick and injured. . Should-it be asked if this progress, has been- associated with, or dependent upon, a. corresponding development of the—handicraft of surgery,, the answer is, ,it has, not. Surgery, as,a .pure .handicraft, . rpached a tW'n.fc-.of perfection, prior . to: , th'eso great changes;. to which point it.ddqs not now attain. -I can imagine .few-phases of handicraftsmanship... more difficult or more subtle.than that, displayed by the lacilo operator in 1 the prer'aiiaesthotic ■ the use-ofV.anaesthe-the surgeon can proceed with easy uoliboration; every stej> can -be ineasP r ™. a "d ; judged; -there is no- call to be onliiant; therejis, no eloment of hurry, for in placo of the flashing.of a,blade is an action as studied as a inovemcnt on tho chess board.

"It would seem that"the highest point of development, in' the use of the hands has been already reached; has been, indeed, passed, and 'that we have now entered upon a : period" of ; 'd"eclino. The loss is lioth great ' and regrettable. Great because, in spite Of our pride of race, we. aro compelled to own that the human being is sh6wiu'g : signs, not of advancement, • but of decay. Regrettable because there- must-be few who would not endorse the teaching of llus--Icm when he said that/'pvery youth, trom tho king's son downwards, should learn to do something finely and thoroughly with his hand,' "