The Evolution of the Kidney 67 



"Myself when young did eagerly frequent 

 Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument 



about it and about: but evermore 

 Came out by the same door where in I went." 



Many centuries later, specifically in 1804, a French chem- 

 ist named Fourcroy,^ who presented the first comprehensive 

 exposition of the nature and physiological importance of 

 urine in a volume entitled, "A General System of Chemical 

 Knowledge", said: 



"The urine of man is one of the animal matters that have 

 been the most examined by chemists' and of which the ex- 

 amination has at the same time furnished the most singular 

 discoveries to chemistry, and the most useful applications to 

 physiology, as well as the art of healing. This liquid, which 

 commonly inspires men only with contempt and disgust, 

 which is generally ranked amongst vile and repulsive matters, 

 has become, in the hands of the chemists, a source of im- 

 portant discoveries and is an object in the history of which 

 we find the most singular disparity between the ideas which 

 are generally formed of it in the world, and the valuable no- 

 tion which the study of it affords to the physiologist, the 

 physician and the philosopher." 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

 The following list is not so much intended to encompass the literature 

 in this field as to indicate a few articles or books of special interest to the 

 student of general biology. 



1. Barrell, J. 1916. Influence of Silurian-Devonian climates on the rise 

 of air-breathing vertebrates. Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer., 27, 3 87. 



2. Bernard, C. 1878. Legons sur les phenomenes de la vie communs aux 

 animaux et aux vegetaux. Paris, J. B. Balliere et fils. 



3. Broom, R. 1936. A new fossil anthropoid skull from South Africa. 

 Nature, 23 8,486. 



4. Broom, R. 193 8. The Pleistocene anthropoid apes of South Africa. 

 Nature, 142, 177. 



