Anatomy, Comparative; Embryology, Human; Evolution; Human beings -- Origin
The primitive or primordial kidneys of the amniote embryo were
formerly called the "Wolffian bodies," and sometimes "Oken's bodies."
They act for a time as kidneys, absorbing unusable juices from the
embryonic body and conducting them to the cloaca--afterwards to the
allantois. There the primitive urine accumulates, and thus the
allantois acts as bladder or urinary sac in the embryos of man and the
other Amniotes. It has, however, no genetic connection with the
primitive kidneys, but is a pouch-like growth from the anterior wall
of the rectum (Figure 1.147 u). Thus it is a product of the visceral
layer, whereas the primitive kidneys are a product of the middle
layer. Phylogenetically we must suppose that the allantois originated
as a pouch-like growth from the cloaca-wall in consequence of the
expansion caused by the urine accumulated in it and excreted by the
kidneys. It is originally a blind sac of the rectum. The real bladder
of the vertebrate certainly made its first appearance among the
Dipneusts (in Lepidosiren), and has been transmitted from them to the
Amphibia, and from these to the Amniotes. In the embryo of the latter
it protrudes far out of the not yet closed ventral wall. It is true
that many of the fishes also have a "bladder." But this is merely a
local enlargement of the lower section of the nephroducts, and so
totally different in origin and composition from the real bladder. The
two structures can be compared from the physiological point of view,
and so are ANALOGOUS, as they have the same function; but not from the
morphological point of view, and are therefore not HOMOLOGOUS. The
false bladder of the fishes is a mesodermic product of the
nephroducts; the true bladder of the Dipneusts, Amphibia, and Amniotes
is an entodermic blind sac of the rectum.
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