Anatomy, Comparative; Embryology, Human; Evolution; Human beings -- Origin
The phylogenetic explanation of polymastism, as given in comparative
anatomy, has lately found considerable support in ontogeny. Hans
Strahl, E. Schmitt, and others, have found that there are always in the
human embryo at the sixth week (when it is three-fifths of an inch
long) the microscopic traces of five pairs of mammary glands, and that
they are arranged at regular distances in two lateral and divergent
lines, which correspond to the mammary lines. Only one pair of them—the
central pair—are normally developed, the others atrophying. Hence there
is for a time in the human embryo a normal hyperthelism, and this can
only be explained by the descent of man from lower primates (lemurs)
with several pairs.
But the milk-gland of the mammal has a great morphological interest
from another point of view. This organ for feeding the young in man and
the higher mammals is, as is known, found in both sexes. However, it is
usually active only in the female sex, and yields the valuable
“mother’s milk”; in the male sex it is
small and inactive, a real rudimentary organ of no physiological
interest. Nevertheless, in certain cases we find the breast as fully
developed in man as in woman, and it may give milk for feeding the
young.
We have a striking instance of this gynecomastism (large milk-giving
breasts in a male) in Fig. 104. I owe the photograph (taken from life)
to the kindness of Dr. Ornstein, of Athens, a German physician, who has
rendered service by a number of anthropological observations, (for
instance, in several cases of tailed men). The gynecomast in question
is a Greek recruit in his twentieth year, who has both normally
developed male organs and very pronounced female breasts. It is
noteworthy that the other features of his structure are in accord with
the softer forms of the female sex. It reminds us of the marble statues
of hermaphrodites which the ancient Greek and Roman sculptors often
produced. But the man would only be a real hermaphrodite if he had
ovaries internally besides the (externally visible) testicles.
Fig.104. A Greek gynecomast. Fig. 104—A Greek gynecomast.
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