Part 3: Nails

Note: For background on this series, please read the Introduction to the 32-Parts Project.

“Stop biting your nails,” my mother warned , “or I’ll put Tabasco Sauce on your fingers.” To introduce me to the remedy, my father put a drop of it on my tongue. I don’t remember if my mother’s threats (never carried out) cured me of nail biting or I grew out of the habit. Most kids do. Statistics, for what they are worth, indicate that as much as 60 percent of kids chew their nails. Most give up the habit by their late teens. Five percent of adults, however, are plagued with nails nibbled to the quick and adorned with hangnails. Forty percent of my adult children fall into this category.

Sixteenth-century French poet Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas was the first to imply (as near as I can determine) the eyes are the windows of the soul. This overused metaphor may be accurate enough for determining a person’s current emotional state or degree of honesty, but the condition of one’s nails – a much less complex part of the human anatomy than the eyes – can have much to say about one’s overall emotional and physical health. It may also give clues to one’s personality.

Like hair, fingernails and toenails are made of dead cells filled with the protein keratin. Nails protect the end of the digits, provide additional tissue support for gripping, help with picking up and manipulating small objects, and are excellent tools for scratching. Players of some stringed instruments also make good use of them as string pickers.

Cells reproduce at the root or matrix, very close to the bone. Most of the matrix is hidden beneath the skin. The little white moon-shape that is sometimes visible at the base of the nail is the end of the matrix. As the nail grows, older cells flatten, harden, and become translucent as they are pushed out beneath the cuticle and beyond the matrix. The shape and length of the matrix determines the shape and thickness of the nail. A matrix damaged either by injury or ill health will produce damaged nails.

Nail biting can be attributed to nervousness, stress, anxiety, or deeper psychological problems. The habit in itself does not damage the matrix. It can, however, contribute to the uptake and spread of infection. Jagged nail edges and hangnails, the tiny flaps of skin that often surround the skin-folds around the nail, easily pick up and hold bacteria which can be transferred to the mouth and eyes. Bacteria also can enter the body through open wounds at the hangnails. Infection is the result.

The nails, especially the toenails when they are continually subjected to warm, moist environments, are breeding grounds for fungi. Nail fungus is difficult to eradicate. Nails can be infected by warts and be affected by infections in other parts of the body. Nail shape, texture, color, and other abnormal characteristics can indicate a number of serious diseases and conditions including inflammatory bowel disease, liver diseases, respiratory and circulatory problems, anemia, kidney diseases, thyroid diseases, and more.

Problems and abnormalities aside, for some people even simple healthy nails are not enough. Nails of the fingers and toes are grown long, buffed, polished, painted, and adorned with decals and jewels. Many of these are not real nails. Rather, they are glued-on strips of plastic shaped to resemble the real things, presumably to make the wearer look more elegant or exotic. Nail-biters may do this in order to disguise their habit.

Breaking habits is an outcome of Buddhist practice. In the case of contemplating the 32 parts of the body, the habit is identifying with the body as something other than it is: a collection of otherwise repugnant stuff governed by the chaotic stuff of the mind. When seen one part at a time, the body isn’t that elegant or exotic after all, no matter how well done-up the nails are.