Not a salute to combat or military action but to genuine arms, the portion of the human body from the shoulder to the wrist, but sometimes including the wrist and hand.
Hands get the glory and most of that is aimed at the fingers. I admit the fingers are clever and very useful. They do work hard and quite successfully. Wrists, too, are very impressive. I think it is accurate to say that a normally healthy wrist can lock itself in any position, be quite rigid and then relax when desired to swivel and swoop again.
But arms are impressive and contribute all the time, too. My greatgrandson was part of an experiment with his Cub Scout troop. Simulating wounds and learning first aid, the boys had splints attached to their arms. The splints kept the elbows straight, unable to bend. In that condition, they had to feed each other. Their arms couldn't deliver the hand to the mouth but they could manage to get a hand to a buddy's mouth.
Wrestlers get very aware of the importance of the movement of arms and the essential contribution of the elbow. If an opponent can control my elbow, keeping it close to my chest or fixed in any other position, he can essentially eliminate that arm and that hand from action. That's the thing about arms and their action: they can put the hands where needed anywhere inside more than a hemisphere based at the shoulder. When you watch any type of "cherry picker" heavy equipment for building construction or fire fighting, you can appreciate the ability to place people at the location in space where they are needed.
I have read that the other primates are more limited in their ability to put their hands on their backs. If we are limber enough, we can touch fingers from the two hands in the middle of our back with one hand going down the back and the other reaching up. The arms carry nerves that deliver very high sensitivity to our fingertips. Our sense of touch is one of the highest in the mammal group.
Of course, my arm is limited to a short distance. I can't reach something that is too far away. Oddly, I also cannot reach something that is too close. I can't reach or even just touch my right forearm with my right hand. That right forearm is too close to that hand and probably will always be unreachable. It is very nice that evolution and our primate family developed two hand/arm combos.
One of the best things about arms is their ability to wrap around somebody we like.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
