Seven famous bodily parts

Seven famous bodily parts

• Achilles’ heel

A famous metaphor for human vulnerablity, Achilles’ heel proved to be the undoing of the otherwise invulnerable Greek warroir. His mother Thetis held the infant Achilles by the heel as she immersed him in the River Styx to render him unassailable. Many years later in battle, the poisoned arrow of Paris found that one unprotected spot and slew Achilles, the bravest of Greek heroes.

• Capt. Jean Danjou’s wooden hand

The wooden hand of this French legionnaire has been enshrined as a symbol of the Forein Legion’s legendary heroism and self-sacrifice. During the Mexican campaign of 1863, Danjou volunteered to lead a company of 64 men top robe the strenght of Mexican forces threatening an important legion convoy. Danjou and his men were searching a ruined hacienda at Camerone when they were ambushed by 2.000 Mexican soldiers. Hopelessly outnumbered, the French were given the opportunity to surrender, but the captain refused and instead had each of his men swear to die rather than give up. The men fought bravely against the Mexican charge, but in the end all were killed. The captain’s wooden hand, later rescued by comrades from the litter of bodies, was kept in the legion mausoleum in Algeria. In 1962 it was moved to the legion’s new headquarters near Marseilles and still figures prominently in the legion’s annual observance of Camerone Day on April 30.

• Vincent van Gogh’s ear

Van Gogh, a leading postimpressionist painter, worked with the great Paul Gauguin for two months until their relationship, strained from the beginning, was brought to a glory conclusion. On Christmas Eve, 1888, the distraught Van Gogh came at Gauguin with a knife and ended up cutting off part of his own left ear. This mutilation was later to figure in his Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear.

• The Haarlem hero’s finger

The legend of the 8-year-old Dutch boy who saved Holland from a catastrophic flood was immortalized in Mary Elizabeth Dodge’s Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates (1865). On his way home from another good deed, the boy heard water spilling through the dike, Holland’s only defense against the flood tides. Realizing there wasn’t a moment to lose, he plugged his finger in the hole and held it there through the dark, freezing night. The teacher who related the story summed up is impact on the Dutch people: “Not a leak can show itself anywhere, either in politics, honor, or public safety, that a million fingers are not ready to stop it at any cost.”

• Cornelis Ketel’s fingers and toes

The Dutch painter Ketel specialized in royal portraits, including one of Elizabeth I. Bored with the conventional idiom of the brush, Ketel began painting with his fingertips and later with his toes.

• Major Kovatzov’s nose

In Nikolai Gogol’s bizarre short story ‘The Nose’, Major Kovatzov’s nose detaches itself and is later discovered in a slice of bread by Ivan Yakovlevich, who throws the offending object in the Neva River. However, it reappears on the streets where it is spotted by the frantic Kovatzov, whose social status is threatened by the loss of his nose. He trails it into a church, but it manages to give him the slip. At one point Kovatzov catches his nose, but it will not stay attached to his face. Finally, the nose simply reappears on het major’s face. He is ‘whole’ once again and regains his social eminence.

• Niccolo Paganini’s hands

An ardent musician and showman, Paganini was celebrated throughout Europe for his virtuosity on the violin and his almost satanic command over audiences. His incessant practice of difficult, almost impossible techniques on the violin resulted in some remarkable physical features, most notably a hand of 18 in. He sometimes played with frayed strings on his violin, hoping one or more might break, so that he could show his ability to play on those that were left.

The Book of Lists, 1978