26 ANDREW JACKSON HOWE. 



the ffominidce ever sprang from the Simiadce or 

 the Cebidce. The gap is too wide to be cleared by any 

 saltus ever before taken in the history of evolution. 

 If man did spring from an ape the evidence leading 

 to that conclusion is defective. The verdict in the 

 case should be, " not proven." 



Any one who has made many dissections of the 

 human body must have been struck with the number 

 of variations encountered in the organism; and it' he 

 has closely observed and considered every prominent 

 variation he must have been surprised to find that 

 each aberration, be it great or small, could be com- 

 pared to a normal state existing in a lower grade of 

 animal. 



There is no part of the human body in which an- 

 atomical deviations so frequently exist as in the brach- 

 ial region. In several instances I have met with a mus- 

 cular band, spanning the lower part of the axilla, and 

 uniting the latissimus dorsi and pectoralis major mus- 

 cles; and in dissecting the felidee I find this to be the 

 normal state. Every work on surgical anatomy calls 

 attention to this and other variations of muscles and 

 deviations of vessels in order that the operator may 

 not be disconcerted by meeting an abnormal arrange- 

 ment of parts. 



In one instance I found the "biceps" had a third 

 head which covered and concealed the brachial artery 

 and median nerve in the lower third of the arm a 

 variation which agrees with a normal state in fdidce. 



It is well known to every comparative anatomist 

 that most marsupialia, allfelidce, and the lower cebidce, 

 are related by one feature in the osseous system,which 

 is, that the internal condyloid ridge of the humerus 

 is perforated for the passage of the brachial artery and 



