ANTHROPOLO&Y AID SURGERY. 



Plates 119—140. 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 



1. Position of Man in Organic Nature. 



LiNN^Us placed man at the head of the animal kingdom, presenting what 

 he deemed his most important characteristic, in the specific«name Sapiens. 

 Other naturalists have expressed themselves quite indignantly against even 

 this approximation to the brute creation, denying the propriety of grouping 

 man with other Mammalia. Nevertheless, it is impossible to deny that in 

 many respects there is a close resemblance to the higher quadrumana in 

 many external features, and a still more intimate relation in the fundamental 

 points of anatomical and physiological structure. By placing him in the 

 order Bimana, of which he is sole occupant, we make a zoological differ- 

 ence from the monkeys and apes, this difference being vastly increased by 

 the presence of intelligence and reason. 



However great the resemblance between Man and the Quadrumana, yet 

 the differences, as already remarked, are sufficient to prevent their ever 

 being approximated more closely than we have done. Thus, a perfectly op- 

 posable thumb is unknown among the monkey tribe; this member, although 

 capable of grasping objects, is yet unable to act with the delicacy and pre- 

 cision so eminently characteristic in man. The erect attitude, too, is man's 

 sole prerogative ; this involving numerous differences in general structure. 

 Another point of difference is to be found in the different facial angle ; this 

 being such as to throw the face immediately beneath the brain, and not 

 anterior to it. This facial angle is formed by two ideal lines,. one drawn 

 from the most projecting portion of the forehead to the anterior extremity 

 of the alveolar margin of the upper jaw, the other extending from the latter 

 point in a horizontal direction through the meatus auditorius externus. The 

 development of brain will generally be found to bear a certain ratio to the 

 obtuseness of this angle. PI. 119, ßg. 10, exhibits the facial angle of the 

 European ; ßg. 11, that of the negro; andy?^. 12, that of the orang-outang. 

 Other important characteristics of mankind are to be found in the absence 

 of any intervals between contiguous teeth, and in the vertical position of 

 the latter; in the comparatively small size of the face, the prominent chin, 

 the broad foot, the long muscular legs; in his capacity of living under great 

 ' extremes of heat and cold; his adaptation to a purely animal or vegetable 



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