When you hit the wrong nailFingers often get smashed, pinched or jammed during daily activities. Most finger injuries are not serious. Although they may be quite painful and inconvenient, these injuries heal well with self-care at home. Serious injuries with possible bone fractures, severe bleeding or severed parts require professional medical help.
What you can do Immediately apply an ice pack or insert finger into ice-cold water to decrease the pain and reduce swelling. For protection, place a washcloth between bare skin and ice.Apply ice pack for 10 to 15 minutes every hour for two hours, then leave ice off for two hours. Repeat this cycle for 48 hours or until swelling is gone. Do not use heat as long as there is swelling.Remove any jewelry if you can do so without causing additional pain.If skin is broken, gently wash with soap, then dry. Apply soft, clean dressing.Splint and support injured finger by taping it to a nearby healthy one.Rest and elevate hand for 24 to 48 hours. Immobilize hand in a sling or use hand as little as possible.Take aspirin or ibuprofen to reduce swelling and pain. NEVER give aspirin to children/teenagers. It can cause Reye’s syndrome, a rare but often fatal condition.When swelling is gone, apply warm compresses at intervals for comfort.Resume full range of motion as soon as swelling is gone. Gentle bending and movement will stretch the muscle tissue and prevent limited movement later.Stop any activity that causes pain to the finger.
Dislocated fingernailsTrim the part of the nail that is still attached to avoid catching it on anything. It is not necessary to remove the nail.Keep area clean and watch for signs of infection.Protect the tip of the finger with a soft cloth or covering. A new nail will take one to two months to grow back.
Blood under a nailApply ice as soon as possible. For protection, place a washcloth between bare skin and ice.Make a hole in the nail to relieve pressure and pain:
Straighten a paper clip and hold it with a pair of pliers in a flame until it is red hot.Place the tip of the paper clip on the nail and let it melt through. You need not push. A thick nail may take several tries. As soon as the hole is complete, blood will escape and the pain and pressure will ease.
If the blood and pressure build up again, repeat the procedure using the same hole.Soak the finger three times a day for 15 minutes in a solution of equal parts water and hydrogen peroxide.*18\303\2*

So genius and wisdom, and by extension talent and competence, do not always travel together, and in fact they often don’t. Most people seem to recognize the difference between these highly desirable traits. Sternberg has studied how people from various walks of life perceive the relationship between creativity and wisdom. It turns out that most of his subjects viewed these traits as being positively but very weakly linked, and in some instances even as being negatively, inversely linked. Interestingly, the same study shows that both “wisdom” and “creativity” were viewed by the subjects as being better correlated with “intelligence” than with each other. This suggests to me that the very construct of “intelligence” is, in the minds of most people, an attempt to capture a sum total of many aspects of the mind, rather than a particular, distinctive aspect of the mind.
The belief that novelty-seeking is the attribute of youth and that wisdom is the attribute of old age seems to be shared by a lot of people. Psychologists J. Heckhausen, R. Dixon, and P. Baltes conducted a fascinating experiment in which they asked their subjects which human attributes appear at what age. Most subjects believed that curiosity and the ability to think clearly become dominant attributes for people in their twenties and that wisdom becomes a dominant attribute for people in their fifties. When asked to rank various attributes in terms of their desirability, wisdom was ranked among the most desirable traits. In a similar study, Marion Perlmutter and her colleagues found that most people associate wisdom with advanced age more than with anything else. This amounts to an interesting syllogism: If people believe that wisdom is the privilege of old age arid also regard wisdom as one of the most desirable traits, then they also must believe that aging has its benefits, its positive side, and its unique and valuable assets.
In the minds of most people competence, like wisdom, is also the fruit of maturity. Understanding wisdom as an extreme degree of competence is consonant with the approach taken by psychologists Paul Baltes and Jacqui Smith, who define wisdom as “expert knowledge,” a highly developed ability to deal with the “fundamental pragmatics of life” involving “important but uncertain matters of life.” They place “rich factual knowledge” and “rich procedural knowledge” among the important prerequisites of wisdom and point out that the accumulation of such knowledge by definition requires a long life.
Following Sternberg’s prudent (and wise!) admonition, I will refrain from discussing the concept of wisdom in all its richness. I will forgo the existential, self-actualizing, and moral aspects of wisdom, so cogently considered by Erikson, Jung, Kohut, and others. I will limit the scope of this book to one aspect of wisdom: the enhanced capacity for problem-solving. This admittedly narrow, morally agnostic approach allows a few villains into the book, along with many heroes. While realizing the limitations of this approach, I feel that it is a big enough slice of an infinitely rich concept to tackle in one book. Problem-solving is the one aspect of wisdom that we are most prepared to explore through neuroscience.
If wisdom and competence (or expertise) increase with age in all their aspects, then how does one reconcile this with the common assumption that one’s mental powers decline with age? Or, to turn it around, if our memory and mental focus decline with age, then how is it possible that our wisdom and competence grow? What sets wisdom and competence apart from other manifestations of the mind and allows them to survive the ravages of aging?
*16\302\2*

Some little “critters” carry a big wallop
Most insect bites and stings are minor and the reaction is localized. Often an insect injects a substance with its bite that causes a painful, stinging sensation. More serious problems may arise if you’re bitten by a poisonous insect — such as a black widow or brown recluse spider — or if you experience an allergic reaction
What you can do
If emergency care is required
Until emergency care can be obtained:
Apply ice or cold water to the bite for five minutes. For protection, place a washcloth between bare skin and ice.
If the bite is on a hand or foot, keep the limb snugly bandaged above the bite for five minutes (but make sure there is still circulation to the limb). Do not apply a tourniquet.
Keep the limb below the level of the heart.

When emergency care is not required
Scrape out or flick out any stinger that may be left in the skin by scraping it out with your fingernail. Avoid squeezing the stinger.
Use calamine lotion or over-the-counter (OTC) hydrocortisone cream to reduce itching and inflammation.
Apply ice. For protection, place a washcloth between bare skin and ice.
If itching becomes severe, try an over-the-counter (OTC) oral antihistamine such as Benadryl or Chlor-Trimeton.
Prevention
General precautions
Avoid wearing perfume if you’ll be spending time outdoors — it attracts bees.
Get reliable instructions before trying to remove a beehive or nest. Follow directions on commercial products.
If known to be allergic to bees, always carry an anaphylactic kit. You can get one with a prescription from your doctor.
*13\303\2*