The illustrated story of evolutionGauvin, Marshall J. (Marshall Jerome)
History
The illustrated story of evolution
Gauvin, Marshall J. (Marshall Jerome)
Evolution (Biology)
Man has evolved from creatures that went on all fours and lived in
trees, and in consequence of his upright posture and changed habits
of life, some structures which are active in the apes are rudimentary
in the human body. A shoulder muscle that is a source of strength to
the apes in climbing, lingers in man as a mere fibrous remnant that
has dwindled through disuse. Another muscle which runs through the
wrist into the palm of the hand, another which extends from the calf
of the leg to the sole of the foot, another which passes from the
shoulder to the neck and was once used to lift the collar bone—these
muscles, which are well developed in the true apes, and less developed
in the anthropoids, are rudimentary in man. These rudimentary organs
and muscles are links in the chain of man’s descent and they point
unerringly to the source of his origin.
The long heel and the poorly developed calf of the anthropoid ape
remind us that he has but recently, so to speak, acquired the upright
posture. In the negroid races also the long heel and diminutive calf
are notable characteristics; while in the white and yellow races the
heel is short and the calf well formed and muscular. Once more, the
obvious conclusion is that the black man’s long heel and slender calf
represent a more primitive development; while the leg and heel of the
white man and the Mongolian show the work of evolution farther advanced.
[Illustration: FIG. 39.—THE RUDIMENTARY MUSCLES OF THE EAR.]
Three months before birth, the human babe is covered with a luxuriant
growth of soft, brown hair, called the “lanugo,” precisely the same
as the ape baby. And throughout life the body of every human being
is covered with a rudimentary growth of hair. But this it not all.
It is as suggestive as it is interesting that in man and in the
anthropoid apes the hair on the upper arm and the hair on the lower
arm always grows towards the elbow (Fig. 40)—a phenomenon which occurs
nowhere else in the animal world except in a few American monkeys.
In a primitive Australian race, the Ainos of Japan, and the pygmies
of the Upper Nile, the extreme hairiness of the body is a notable
characteristic. And the photograph of Julia Pastrana, a Siamese (Fig.
41), shows that this lady was not only bearded like a man, but that her
entire body was plentifully clothed with hair. Some chimpanzees, on the
other hand, are remarkably hairless. One variety is, in fact, almost
entirely bald.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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