Man from the South

In the story, Man From The South, an old man makes a bet with a young soldier. If the soldier loses the bet, he is to allow the old man to chop off the little finger of his left hand. The soldier makes a remark that it should be fine as he has never found much use for that finger anyhow. However, the pinky finger aids greatly in the ability to grip and grasp different things. It also showed at the end that the wife of the man betting had also bet against him in the past a long time ago. In the story, we learn that the wife has only two digits left on her hand: the thumb and one finger. Both of these characters have many occupations that would be affected by the loss of any digits. In fact, loss of the pinky can account for up to a 33% loss in overall grip-strength. If the soldier (a Navy sailor) were to lose his pinky, he would have trouble in performing occupations that normally came easy to him before. Typically a Navy sailor is responsible for steering a ship and maintenance of a ship. One of the occupations that probably would be affected most would be the ability of the soldier to anchor the ship. When anchoring a ship you have to be able to pick up and grip an anchor to throw down and land in the sand to successfully stop the ship from moving. The inability to properly grip the anchor and chain could result in injury to the soldier and/or others. I’ve seen many individuals wear gloves when working with chains and ropes, so that may allow him to maintain a better grip and grasp on the chain of the anchor to avoid dropping it. I think this would be the best way to avoid injury to himself and others. Another modification that could be made is making sure that his right hand is higher than his left when holding the objects that way his biceps of his right arm is doing the majority of the work and aiding in the gripping of the object. It would take less pressure off of his left arm and grip ability.