The Structure of Man: an Index to his Past History

Abstract

THIS book, which is a translation of Prof. Wiedersheim's “Der Bau der Menschen,” by H. and M. Bernard, has the advantage of a preface and notes by Prof. G. B. Howes. As the preface states, the object of the work “is an endeavour to set forth the more salient features in the anatomy of man which link him with lower forms, and others in that of lower forms which shed special light on parts of the human organism.” Such books as this given to the scientific study of anatomy much assistance by calling attention to the interesting deductions which may be made by a careful study of the different variations met with in the dissection of man and animals. In order that such deductions may be placed on a firm basis, it is necessary to have careful observations recorded in a very large number of cases, and in the English preface of Prof. Wiedersheim's book a special tribute is paid to the work carried out in the different anatomical schools through the “Collective Investigation Committee of Great Britain and Ireland.” The English translation has in a great many places been added to, and brought up to date in notes by Prof. Howes. Some of these additions are exceedingly valuable in themselves, and further, their practical use is increased by the fact that they give references to the most recent literature on the subjects with which they deal. The plan of the book has been well thought out, and its arrangement is such as to render the search for information contained in it an easy one. Special chapters are set apart for the integument and tegumental organs, the skeleton, the muscular system, the nervous system, the sense organs, the alimentary canal and its appendages, the circulatory system, and the urinogenital system. The arrangement of the matter in each of these chapters is further carefully classified. In certain places the terms used lack the accuracy which is essential to a work on human anatomy, thus (p. 91) on the “comparison of the fore- and hindlimbs of man,” to speak of the leg and arm of the adult as “opposite extremities” is vague and inaccurate. Again, in the description of the lower end of the humerus (p. 77) confusion is caused by the application of the term “ent-epicondylar” foramen to the occasional perforation of the olecranon fossa, instead of confining this name for the foramen partially enclosed by the ent-epicondylar process, which is sometimes present in man. The theories put forward in some parts of the book to account for facts observed in man, seem scarcely adequate; thus, for instance, on p. 38 we are told “the shifting of the centre of gravity towards the dorsal side explains why the vertebral ends of the lowest ribs are so firmly attached.” Yet a very similar condition of the more posterior ribs obtains in quadrupeds, in which animals a shifting of the centre of gravity towards the spine does not occur. In another place (p. 55) it is stated that in lower races, as in the apes, the process of obliteration of the cranial sutures beginning in the frontal region and proceeding backwards “naturally causes an earlier limitation in the growth of the anterior lobes of the brain; whereas in the higher (white) races, when the fronto-parietal suture disappears only after the obliteration of the parieto-occipital one, these lobes are capable of further development.” The obliteration of the sutures in the frontal region does not necessarily limit increase in growth of the frontal bones, much less that of the contained brain, and further, it has been shown that the frontal lobes do not in their growth vary with the changes in position of the fronto-parietal suture. The posterior boundary of the frontal lobe—fissure of Rolando—has a relatively constant position during brain growth, so that a relative increase in size of the frontal lobes, in white races, does not take place during the time that certain of the cranial sutures are closing, or even after birth. In the chapter on the nervous system, it is a pity that the old and superseded observations of Möller are retained, and we read, “Man differs from the Anthropoids in the preponderance of the frontal lobe and, to a lesser degree, of the occipital lobe, and in a corresponding backward extension of the temporal lobe. The parietal lobe is about equally developed in the brains of man and Anthropoids” (p. 131). As a matter of fact the great extent of the parietal lobe, together with a corresponding decrease of the occipital lobe, is a human characteristic. In the Anthropoids the upper part of the posterior boundary of the frontal lobe is relatively further back than in man. It is a curious fact that Prof. Wiedersheim's book should adhere to the old view, that a well-marked occipital lobe is a human characteristic, since it has been definitely shown that this part of the brain, which was at one time denied to apes, really attains in them its greatest relative development, and further, it is in the lower apes that a maximum is reached.

The Structure of Man: an Index to his Past History.

By Prof. R. Wiedersheim, translated by H. and M. Bernard. 8vo, pp. xxi + 227. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1895.)