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With regard to the translation of rings from the right to the left hand, it may be pleasing to refer to that charming old work, Enquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors, by Browne:[81] he says, “That hand [the left] being lesse employed, thereby they were best preserved, and for the same reason they placed them on this finger, for the thumbe was too active a finger and is commonly imployed with either of the rest: the index or fore finger was too naked whereto to commit their pretiosities, and hath the tuition of the thumbe scarce unto the second joynt: the middle and little finger they rejected as extreams, and too big or too little for their rings; and of all chose out the fourth as being least used of any, as being guarded on either side, and having in most this peculiar condition that it cannot be extended alone and by itselfe, but will be accompanied by some finger on either side.”

As to the Egyptians deriving a nerve from the heart in the fourth finger of the left hand, the priests, from this notion, anointed the same with precious oils before the altar. And Browne, in his Vulgar Errors, says, “The Egyptians were weak anatomists, which were so good embalmers.”[82]