ost nails, gradually become more and more transparent, and hence pinker
in color, from allowing the blood to show through. During a serious
illness, the portion of the nail which is then forming suffers in its
nutrition, and instead of going on normally to almost perfect
transparency, it remains opaque. And the patient will, in consequence,
carry a white bar across two or three of his nails for from three to
nine months after the illness, according to the rate of growth of his
nails. Not infrequently this white bar will enable you to ask a patient
the question, "Did you not have a serious illness of some sort two,
three, or six months ago?" according to the position of the bar. And his
fearsome astonishment, if he answers your question in the affirmative,
is amusing to see. You will be lucky if, in future, he doesn't incline
to regard you as something uncanny and little less than a wizard.

Another of the score of interesting changes in the hand, which, though
not very common, is exceedingly significant when found, is a curious
thickening or clubbing of the ends of the fingers, with extreme
curvature of the nails, which is associated with certain forms of
consumption. So long has it been recognized that it is known as the
"Hippocratic finger," on account of the vivid description given of it by
the Greek Father of Medicine, Hippocrates. It has lost, however, some of
its exclusive significance, as it is found to be associated also with
certain diseases of the heart. It seems to mean obstructed circulation
through the lungs.

Next after the face and the hand would come the carriage and gait. When
a man is seriously sick he is sick all over. Every muscle in his body
has lost its tone, and those concerned with the maintenance of the erect
position, being last developed, suffer first and heaviest. The bowed
back, the droop of the shoulders, the hanging jaw, and the shuffling
gait, tell the story of chronic, wasting disease more graphically than
words. We have a ludicrously inverted idea of cause and effect in our
minds about "a good carriage." We imagine that a ramrod-like stiffening
of the backbone, with the head erect, shoulders thrown back and chest
protruded, is a cause of health, instead of simply being an effect, or
one of the incidental symptoms thereof. And we often proceed to drill
our unfortunate patients into this really cramped and irrational
attitude, under the impression that by making them look better we shall