The Hundred Days (novel) - Historical and Scientific References

Historical and Scientific References

Dr Amos Jacob brings aboard a preserved hand exhibiting what is described as palmar aponeurosis - and now known as Dupuytren's contracture, named for distinguished surgeon and Stephen's friend Baron Guillaume Dupuytren, a hand with the fingers bent inwards and the fingernails growing through the flesh of the palm. Stephen Maturin also brings aboard a narwhal tusk from a previous Baltic voyage.

The superstitious seamen accept one as a Hand of Glory and the other as a unicorn's horn, and regard them as good luck charms. The Marine Captain's dog, Naseby, eats the hand, and an emetic only recovers the bones, while the narwhal tusk is broken when a drunken Killick and an even more drunken ship's boy play around with it - something that makes the domineering Killick suddenly very unpopular with his shipmates. A measure of goodwill is restored on the ship when Stephen wires the bones together to make a skeletal hand - even more sinister looking, which pleases the crew, and an old marine engineer, Mr. Wright (a cousin of Christine Hatherleigh) manages to glue the horn back together.

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