The Nails

As regards health, and the diseases likely to affect the subject, the nails will be found to be remarkably sure guides. Medical men in both London and Paris have taken up this study of the nails with great interest. Often a patient does not know, or for the moment forgets, what his parents have suffered or died from; but an examination of the nails will in a few seconds disclose important hereditary traits.

In the first place, the care of the nails does not alter or affect their type in the slightest degree: whether they are broken by work or polished by care, the type remains unchanged. For instance, a mechanic may have long nails, and the gentleman at ease may have very short, broad ones, though he manicures them every morning.

Nails are divided into four distinct classes: long and short, broad and narrow.

LONG NAILS

• Long nails never indicate such great physical strength as the short, broad type. Very long-nailed persons are more liable to suffer from chest and lung trouble, and this is more accentuated if the nails are much curved, both from the top back toward the finger and across the finger. This tendency is even more aggravated if the nail is fluted or ribbed. This type of nail when shorter, indicates throat trouble, such as laryngitis and bronchial affections.

• Long nails, very wide at the top and bluish in appearance, denote bad circulation proceedings from ill health, or nervous prostration. This is very often the case with the hands of women between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one and forty-two and forty-seven.

SHORT NAILS

Short, small nails run in whole families in which there is a tendency toward heart trouble. Short nails, thin and flat at the base, with little or no moons, are signs of weak action of the heart. Large moons indicate good circulation.

• Short nails, very flat and sunken, as it were, into the flesh at the base, show nerve disorders. Short nails, very flat and inclined to curve out or lift up at the edges, may be forerunners of paralysis.

• Short-nailed people have a greater tendency to suffer from heart trouble and from complaints affecting the trunk and lower limbs than those with nails. Long-nailed persons are more liable to trouble in the upper half of the system—in the lungs, chest, and head.

• Natural spots on the nails are signs of a highly-strung nervous temperament; when the nails are flecked with spots the whole nervous system requires a thorough overhauling.

• Thin nails, if small, denote delicate health and want of energy. Nails very narrow and long, if high and much curved, threaten spinal trouble, and never promise very great strength.