Ninth Annual Meeting. 69 



change in the animal organism, and a variation in a certain direction. Again, a class 

 of plants may develop a peculiar flavor, possibly due to the influence of insect fertiliza- 

 tion, and a certain animal in a certain locality being compelled to use this plant, or that 

 may prefer the change, may adopt the new form and become conformed to it as it evolves 

 peculiar characteristics. Accidental preference for single parts of the plant, as the leaves, 

 buds or tender shoots, or nuts, fruits, flower.s, roots, bark, etc., leads to habitual employ- 

 ment of the parts and consequent modification of structure, both special and general. 



It is not possible to name or describe one completely understood process in this in- 

 tricate system, but these crude suggestions may direct observation of the principles at 

 work. The subject is so massive, yet so new and unworked, that little can be expected 

 of attempt at elaboration from this paper. 



But we will close by reference to one animal upon which food-selection has wrought 

 marked effects, and whose development has been largely influenced by it. I refer 

 to Homo sylvaticus (man). With the appearance of the opposable thumb in man, the 

 era of the teeth as prehensile organs began to decline, until to-day that function in 

 them is entirely aborted. With the beginning of the artificial reduction of his food from 

 its natural condition dates the great catalogue of changes in his organism, one of the 

 most conspicuous and important of which is the reduction of the masticating region. The 

 art of cooking his food came with intellectual evolution. The brain case increased as 

 the face was suppressed, till to-day it greatly predominates in the contour of the head. 

 The artificial reduction of food has induced a tendency toward the suppression of the 

 teeth and their environments, and in the highest races we find a marked atrophy of this 

 region. We claim that this is due to the softening of food, which has caused mastica.tion 

 to fall largely into disuse, and that the masticating organs not being employed, or being of 

 no furtheruse to the economy, must, according to law, submit to the doom of useless things, 

 and be expelled. We thus contend that the teeth of man are tending toward final abor- 

 tion on account of their chief function, mastication, rapidly becoming useless. Like 

 all other organs, they re<(uire the stimulus of use to ensure their perpetuation in the spe- 

 cies, and like all organs that have become useless through altered habits of tlie species, 

 must be suppressed thi-ough the law of economy of growth. As evidence that the tend- 

 ency is in progress, we may cite the atrophy of the masticating region in the highest 

 races, as compared with its size and strength in the savage, i. e., the smaller muscular 

 development, jaw-bones, teeth, etc. Also in the wisdom-tooth we are the contempo- 

 rary witnesses of an organ in process of suppression — a very remarkable and interesting 

 phenomenon. This tooth in civilized man to-day is rarely perfect in size or structure ; it 

 is usually atrophied, often markedly so; is always inferior in structure to the other teeth 

 in the same denture ; is often erupted very late in life, and in some persons never appears ; 

 or again, only one or two in the set of four may erupt. This tooth, originally, as in most 

 savage tribes to-day, was the peer of the other molars in quality and usefulness, but in 

 civilized man it is frequently worse than useless on account of the disturbance it fre- 

 frequently occasions by mal-eruption. 



The food of man is itself undergoing evt)lution, and the era of its scientific production 

 is fast approaching. This is progressing at such a rate and with such a tendency, that its 

 ultimate result will be the cliemical preparation of the proximate elements of the tissues, 

 which will be used as food alone. The resources of nature are beginning to be felt to be 

 inadequate to meet the demands of the increasing millions of the race for food. Science 

 must come to the rescue, and will produce from inorganic as well as organic nature the 

 compact and simple proximate elements of the tissues, upon which, in the time to come, 

 the race will doubtless depend for food. In this form food will require little manipula- 

 tion preparatory to assimilation, and our species will have reached the highest pinnacle 

 of life when possessing the least animality ; and this chiefly by the power of food-selec- 

 tion ! 



