![]() Paronychia: The offending bacteria are usually staphylococcal and streptococcal organisms.This may be a cut, animal bite, or puncture wound. Usually some form of trauma is the initial event. How the infection starts and is found in a particular location is what makes each specific type of infection unique. The exception to this is the herpetic whitlow, which is caused by a virus. This infection is often misdiagnosed as a paronychia or felon.īacteria cause most of these finger infections. This is the most common viral infection of the hand. Herpetic whitlow: A herpetic whitlow is an infection of the fingertip area caused by a virus.This infection is located in the fingertip pad and soft tissue associated with it. Felon: A felon is an infection of the fingertip.This is the most common bacterial infection seen in the hand. This infection is usually superficial and localized to the soft tissue and skin around the fingernail. Paronychia: A paronychia is an infection of the finger that involves the tissue at the edges of the fingernail.Failure to properly treat these infections can result in permanent disability or loss of the finger.Įarly recognition and proper treatment of the following main finger infections will help prevent most of the serious outcomes. Often, these infections start out small and are relatively easy to treat. Infection can range from mild to potentially serious. Perhaps we’ll find that evidence soon.Injury or infection to a finger or fingers is a common problem. But now that this paper has been published, archeologists will know what to look for. Without concrete evidence of finger amputation, this is still just a hypothesis. But that’s still not the same as proof, and the authors themselves admit that there’s a big difference between knowing that something could have happened and knowing that it actually did. With a practice this widespread, it’s not difficult to believe that ancient people engaged in it as well. Then, of course, a finger might be cut off a serial criminal as punishment. Some people might cut off a finger as a religious offering or good luck charm-the paper describes cases where mothers would cut off and swallow their child’s finger to give them good luck in life-and there were plenty of societies where people would remove a finger while grieving the loss of a loved one. The reasons behind the amputations were extremely varied. The researchers found 121 cultures from around the world that had some sort of finger-amputation practice. ![]() What they found is that not only do people cut off their fingers, the practice is surprisingly common. It’s impossible to ask these people what's going on, so the researchers looked at modern and historical tribes to see if any of them do the same thing. Researchers from Simon Fraser University in Canada felt like there were too many missing fingers on too many paintings in too many parts of the world for the whole thing to be a coincidence. For instance, these missing-finger paintings show up even in warmer climates where people really shouldn’t be suffering from frostbite. There could be plenty of reasons for this-Stone Age people might simply lose a lot of fingers to frostbite-but something about this explanation doesn’t quite add up. Stone Age people left imprints of their hands on cave walls all over the world, and for some reason, a lot of those imprints are missing fingers. While the most well-known paintings feature pictures of bison or scenes of hunting, by far the most common artworks are simple hand paintings or tracings. Starting around 50,000 years ago-a period that scientists refer to as the "Upper Paleolithic"-they started leaving behind all kinds of art and artifacts for modern scientists to discover.Īmong those artifacts are cave paintings, where they recorded details of their lives for posterity. Using nothing more than rocks, sticks, and their own ingenuity, these people managed to build tools, master fire, establish complex societies, domesticate dogs, and spread throughout nearly the entire globe. Stone Age people are some of the most fascinating, from an anthropological perspective. ![]() ![]() Right now it’s still a guess, but the researchers believe future evidence will help illuminate a strange and fascinating practice from our distant ancestors. Plenty of cave paintings depict hands with missing fingers, and a trio of researchers believes they know why: those people had their fingers deliberately amputated. Did most Stone Age people have all their fingers? According to the paintings they left behind, many of them did not.
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