500 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



mammals, and why in man the same arrangement becomes detriment- 

 al. He dwells on the number of lives that are sacrificed every year 

 by the absence of valves in the htemorrhoidal veins. He also mentions 

 other disadvantages in the upright attitude, as seen in the position of 

 the femoral artery, even with man's ability to protect it. Its exposed 

 condition is a dangerous element. Inguinal hernia of rare occurrence 

 in mammals occurs very often in man, at least twenty per cent being 

 affected. Strangulated hernia also causes many deaths. Prolapsus 

 uteri and other troubles and diseases are referred to by Dr. Clevenger 

 as due to the upright position. In other words, the penalties of origi- 

 nal sin ai'e in fact the penalities resulting from man's assumption of 

 the erect posture. 



In another paper by the same author,* on the " Origin and Descent 

 of the Human Brain," he gives an interesting sketch of the phylogen- 

 esis of the spinal cord to its ultimate culmination in the development 

 of the brain of man. He says that the most general interest centers in 

 the large mass of cells and nerve-fibers called the cerebrum. "In the 

 ornithorhynchus it is smooth and simple in form, but the beaver also 

 has an unconvoluted brain, which shows at once the folly of attaching 

 psychological importance to the number and intricacy of folds in ani- 

 mal brains. With phrenology, which finds bibativeness in the mastoid 

 process of the temporal bone, and amativeness in the occipital ridge, 

 the convolutional controversies must die out, as has the so-called 

 science of palmistry, which reads one's fate and fortune in the skin- 

 folds of the hand." 



Professor Alexander Graham Bell f has presented a memoir to the 

 National Academy on the " Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human 

 Race," in which he shows by tables a series of generations of certain 

 families in which the progenitors being deaf-mutes this peculiarity be- 

 comes perpetuated in many of the descendants. Recognizing fully 

 the laws of heredity, natural selection, etc., he shows that the estab- 

 lishment of deaf-mute schools, in which a visual language is taught 

 which the pupils alone understand, tends to bring them into close 

 association with one another ; and that naturally, with this seclusion, 

 acquaintance ripens into friendship and love, and that statistics show 

 that there is now in process of being built up a deaf variety of man. 



Dr. W. K. Brooks,J animated by the cogency of Professor Bell's 

 reasoning, is led to prepare an article entitled " Can Man be Modified 

 by Selection ? " In this paper he discusses the startling proposition of 

 Professor Bell, and recognizes the convincing proof which he furnishes 

 to show that the law of selection does place within our reach a power- 

 ful influence for the improvement of our race. The striking character 

 of the tables of facts presented by Professor Bell, and the significant 



* "American Naturalist," vol. xv, p. 013. 



f " Memoirs of the National Academy of Science," vol. ii, fourth memoir. 



X "Popular Science Monthly," vol. xxvii, p. 15. 



