432 CORPOREAL CHARACTERISTICS OP MAN. 



Man only has a prominent chin : his lower jaw is the shortest, 

 compared with the cranium, and its condyles differ in form, 

 direction, and articulation, from those of any hrute : (Sect. XXI. 

 Note F.) in no brute are the teeth arranged in such a close and 

 uniform series j the lower incisores, like the jaw in which they 

 are fixed, are perpendicular, — a distinct characteristic of man, 

 for in brutes they slope backwards with the jaw bone ; the canine 

 are not longer than the rest, nor insulated as in monkeys ; the 

 molares differ from those of the orang-outang and of all the genus 

 simia by their singularly obtuse projections. 



The slight hairiness of the human skin in general, although 

 certain parts, as the pubes and axillae, are more copiously fur- 

 nished with hair than in brutes ; the omnivorous structure of the 

 alimentary canal (Sect. XXI. Note E) ; the curve of the vagina 

 corresponding with the curve of the sacrum formerly mentioned, 

 page 428) preventing woman from being, as brute females are, 

 retromingent ; the peculiar structure of the human uterus and 

 placenta ; the length of the umbilical chord and the existence of 

 the vesicula umbilicalis until the fourth month j together with the 

 extreme delicacy of the cellular membrane ; are likewise structural 

 peculiarities of the human race. The situation of the heart lying 

 not upon the sternum, as in quadrupeds, but upon the diaphragm, 

 on account of our erect position, — the basis turned not, as in 

 them, to the spine, but to the head, and the apex to the left 

 nipple j the absence of the allantois, of the panniculus carnosus, 

 of the rete mirabile arteriosum, of the suspensorius oculi ; and 

 the smallness of the foramen incisivum, which is not only very 

 large in brutes, but generally double, though not peculiarities, 

 are striking circumstances. 



Man only can live in every climate ; * he is the slowest in 



* The ingenious and lively author of the excellent work On the influence of 

 tropical climates on European constitution* (J. Johnson, M.D.), ascribes this 

 superiority of man over brutes to the power of our intellect in contriving 

 means of resisting the inclemencies of situation, but Blumenbach accounts for 



