Chap. II. Manner of Development. 39 



distinct uteri, each with a well-constructed orifice and passage, 

 and each furnished with numerous muscles, nerves, glands and 

 vessels, if they had not formerly passed through a similar course 

 of development, as in the case of existing marsupials. No one 

 will pretend that so perfect a structure as the abnormal double 

 uterus in woman could be the result of mere chance. But the 

 principle of reversion, by which a long-lost structure is called 

 back into existence, might serve as the guide for its full develop- 

 ment, even after the lapse of an enormous interval of time. 



Professor Canestrini, after discussing the foregoing and various 

 analogous cases, arrives at the same conclusion as that just 

 given. He adduces another instance, in the case of the malar 

 bone, 40 which, in some of the Quadrumana and other mammals, 

 normally consists of two portions. This is its condition in the 

 human foetus when two months old ; and through arrested develop- 

 ment, it sometimes remains thus in man when adult, more 

 especially in the lower prognathous races. Hence Canestrini 

 concludes that some ancient progenitor of man must have had 

 this bone normally divided into two portions, which afterwards 

 oecame fused together. In man the frontal bone consists of a 

 single piece, but in the embryo, and in children, and in almost 

 all the lower mammals, it consists of two pieces separated by a 

 distinct suture. This suture occasionally persists more or less 

 distinctly in man after maturity ; and more frequently in ancient 

 than in recent crania, especially, as Canestrini has observed, in 

 those exhumed from the Drift, and belonging to the brachyce- 

 phalic type. Here again he comes to the same conclusion as in 

 the analogous case of the malar bones. In this, and other instances 

 presently to be given, the cause of ancient races approaching the 

 lower animals in certain characters more frequently than do the 

 modern races, appears to be, that the latter stand at a somewhat 



40 ' Annuario della Soc. dei Natu- tected in about two per cent, of 



ralisti in Modena,' 18(37, p. 83. adult skulls; he also remarks that 



Prof. Canestrini gives extracts on it more frequently occurs in pro- 



this subject from various authorities, gnathous skulls, not of the Aryan 



Laurillard remarks, that as he has race, than in others. See also G. 



found a complete similarity in the Delorenzi on the same subject ; ' Tre 



form, proportions, and connection of nuovi casi d'auomalia dell' osso, 



the two malar bones in several malare,' Torino, 1872. Also. E. 



human subjects and in certain apes, Morselli, ' Sopra una rara anomalia 



he cannot consider this disposition dell' osso malare,' Modena, 1872, 



of the parts as simply accidental. Still more recently Gruber has 



Another paper on this same anomaly written a pamphlet on the division 



has been published by Dr. Saviotti of this bone. I give these references 



in the ' Gazzetta delle Cliniche,' because a reviewer, without any 



Turin, 1871, w)iere he says that grounds or scruples, has thrown 



traces of the division may be de- doubts nq m y statements. 



