Abstract
AT a meeting of the Royal Anthropological Institute held on February 8, Dr. W. H. R. Rivers, president, in the chair, Prof. Arthur Keith, in making a report on a specimen of a human tail which had been bequeathed to the institute by the late Dr. J. C. McLachan, of Halifax, Yorks, took occasion to review the present state of our knowledge regarding the occurrence of true tails in human beings. The specimen submitted was a true human tail exactly similar to one very completely examined by Prof. Ross Harrison and described by him in the Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin of 1901. Prof. Harrison's specimen, which was removed from a boy aged six months, was 40 mm. long at birth, 70 mm. long when excised, contained striped muscle, and moved under various emotional states. Dr. McLachan's specimen was removed from a girl aged three months, measuring 105 mmi long in its preserved state, II mm. in diameter at the base, and tapering to a conical point. It also contained strands of striped muscle, and must have had the power of movement. As is the case in all such specimens, with three recorded exceptions, no vertebrae were present, nor could any segmental arrangement be observed in the central core. The skin covering the tail was studded with hair-roots and sebaceous and sweat glands.
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Human Tails. Nature 106, 845–846 (1921). https://doi.org/10.1038/106845a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/106845a0