Anatomy, Comparative; Embryology, Human; Evolution; Human beings -- Origin
The organs which we have now enumerated in this general survey, and of
which we have noted the characteristic disposition, are those parts of
the organism that are found in all vertebrates without exception in
the same relation to each other, however much they may be modified. We
have chiefly had in view the transverse section of the body (Figures
1.101 and 1.102), because in this we see most clearly the distinctive
arrangement of them. But to complete our picture we must also consider
the segmentation or metamera-formation of them, which has yet been
hardly noticed, and which is seen best in the longitudinal section. In
man and all the more advanced vertebrates the body is made up of a
series or chain of similar members, which succeed each other in the
long axis of the body--the segments or metamera of the organism. In
man these homogeneous parts number thirty-three in the trunk, but they
run to several hundred in many of the vertebrates (such as serpents or
eels). As this internal articulation or metamerism is mainly found in
the vertebral column and the surrounding muscles, the sections or
metamera were formerly called pro-vertebrae. As a fact, the
articulation is by no means chiefly determined and caused by the
skeleton, but by the muscular system and the segmental arrangement of
the kidneys and gonads. However, the composition from these
pro-vertebrae or internal metamera is usually, and rightly, put
forward as a prominent character of the vertebrate, and the manifold
division or differentiation of them is of great importance in the
various groups of the vertebrates. But as far as our present task--the
derivation of the simple body of the primitive vertebrate from the
chordula--is concerned, the articulate parts or metamera are of
secondary interest, and we need not go into them just now.
(FIGURE 1.103 A, B, C, D. Instances of redundant mammary glands and
nipples (hypermastism). A a
pair of small redundant breasts (with two nipples on the left) above
the large normal ones; from a 45-year-old Berlin woman, who had had
children 17 times (twins twice). (From Hansemann.) B the highest
number: ten nipples (all giving milk), three pairs above, one pair
below, the large normal breasts; from a 22-year-old servant at
Warschau. (From Neugebaur.) C three pairs of nipples: two pairs on the
normal glands and one pair above; from a 19-year-old Japanese girl. D
four pairs of nipples: one pair above the normal and two pairs of
small accessory nipples underneath; from a 22-year-old Bavarian
soldier. (From Wiedersheim.))
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