"Often I have stood before a group of medical students or surgeons to analyze the motion of one finger. I hold before them a dissected cadaver hand, almost obscene-looking when severed from the body and trailing strands of sinew. I announce that I will move the tip of the little finger. To do so, I must place the cadaver hand on a table and spend perhaps four minutes sorting through the intricate network of tendons and muscles. (To allow dexterity and slimness for actions such as piano playing, the finger has no muscles in itself; tendons transfer force from muscles in the forearm and palm.) Finally, when I have arranged at least a dozen muscles in the correct configuration and tension, with a delicate movement I can maneuver them so the little finger moves firmly without the proximal joints buckling...
"In order to observe the types of artificial hand that scientist and engineers have developed through years of research and millions of dollars of technology, I have visited facilities that produce radioactive materials. With great pride scientists demonstrate their skilled machines that allow them to avoid exposure to radiation. By adjusting knobs and levers they can control and artificial hand whose wrist supinates and revolves. Recent models even possess an opposable thumb, and advanced feature reserved for primates in nature. Smiling like a proud father, the scientist wiggles the mechanical thumb for me.
"I nod approvingly and compliment him on the wide range of activity the mechanical hand can perform. But he knows, as I do, that compared to a human thumb his atomic-age hand is clumsy and limited, even pathetic - a child's Play Doh sculpture compared to a Michelangelo masterpiece. A piano concert proves that."
from Fearfully and Wonderfully Made, by Dr. Paul Brand and
Philip Yancey
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