METHODS OF NATURE

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 July 1923, Page 8

METHODS OF NATURE

THE BULL-DOG MAN. I’rciessor fair Arthur Keith, in a series or lectures on the mechanism ol ewiutmn at the Royal institution, Dondon, drew a striking parallel between the methods of .Nature and a commonplace that special attention rnose of tne fashionable dressmaker. In tne fashion world, he said, it was should be given to shoes, gloves, and fiats. Nature had taken up the same attitude. Alan’s most distinctive features lay in head, feet, and hands, and the same was true of animals. In pigeons, for example, if the beak was short and snub the feet were small, but if the beak was long and strong the same was the case with the feet and toes. So with Theyjiad snub faces, short legs and smaßTeSt. Dachshunds, on the other hand, had the legs and feet pf the bull-dog, but the face of the ordinary dogs. *ln Uns respect men were similar, and it was quite possible to recognise, owing to misdirection of growth, men of He buil-dog type, as it was also possible to recognise men ol the dachshund type who had small, stubby hands and feet, but normal faces. The Mongolian, races were typical of bull-dogism, and it was interesting to note that man s distant cousin, the orang, had its face moulded on bull-dog lines. While the mechanism of these changes was obscure, it seemed clear that they were due to lapses on the part of the organs controlling growth. Men and women were occasionally affected with acromegaly, and owing to tiie excessive development of the pituitary gland grew hands, feet, and faces out of all proportion to their stature. The pituitary gland acted just like alcohol or strychnine. In small doses those drugs acted as tonics, but in large doses as poisons. So with the pituitary gland. Its action was normaly beneficent, and gave to the race its most valuable characteristics. But occasionally its action was erratic, with disastrous results. Hunter had shown that one of the latest of .human acquisitions had been the fair skin. In black races and white alike there was a period when the skin was free from colour. The lair hair of girlhood often became brown in womanhood, and the flaxen liair of babyhood usually darkened in childhood. If the pituitary glands became damaged by disease, it was not unusual for the skin of the sufferer to assume a bronze colour.

The development of the loot possessed special interest. In the anthropold at the third month the great toe broke away from the others, but in the human embryo there was no such

separation. There was no more striking fact concerning the evolution'of the human body than the fact that while man possessed an unique power of using his larynx and tongue for speech amt the muscles of his lace for all shades of expression, yet these muscles were just those found in the highest apes, slightly differentiated, but with no new element introduced. Man’s preeminence was due solely, to the rise and overwhelming growth of his brain. The Huxley-Owen controversy as to whether man’s brain was built on the lines of that of the chimpanzee had long ago been answered in. the affirmative, but it remained to be discovered how it was that man’s brains had so far outstripped those of the ape.

What was known was that by the sixth month the controlling portions of the brain were already expanded so as to overshadow all primitive parts. These elements consisted of billions of microscopic living units which had a marvellous power of arranging themselves. The power that young nerve and muscle units possessed in this respect was no more and no less wonderful than the faculty of the wandering white blood corpuscles that could find out when a piece of scavenging work needed their attention. The task in. front of those studying the machinery of development was a long one. They had to investigate Ihe habits of Ihe various units of the embryonic body with the same attention as that given Io the nature and wavs of live animals. It would eventually lie known, however, how man came by the peculiar properties of his brain and mind when such studies had been completed.