900 



LIFE : OUTLINES OF GENERAL BIOLOGY 



cases they are practically unimportant — just straws showing how 

 the evolution-wind has blown. 



In man there are many of these more or less anachronistic 

 structures; in fact, it is forty years since that excellent anatomist 

 Wiedersheim reckoned up 126 or thereby. Thus it is often stated 

 by those who ought to know that man would be a healthier creature 

 if he had no vermiform appendix. He certainly seems to get on very 

 well without it. It is often stated — we like to be cautious about 

 these matters — that man's food-canal, about thirty feet, is far too 

 long. It was adapted for days when the food was coarse and poor, 

 and when the meals were very unpunctual — when, in short, man 

 had to eat large quantities. Especially is the length of the large 



Fig. 155. 



Vestigial Hip-Girdle and Hind- Limb of a Whale. After Struthers. P, vestige 

 of pelvis; F, vestige of femur; T, vestige of tibia. 



intestine regarded as an anachronism in these days of condensed, 

 highly nutritious food and regular meals. 



Then there are the wisdom teeth or third molars, which are often] 

 late of appearing and of little use. They are often more trouble thani 

 they are worth. They are part of our complement of thirty-twoj 

 teeth, inherited from prehuman ancestors, which have become! 

 overcrowded in man owing to the obvious shortening down of the^ 

 region of the mammahan snout. It may be, however, that it isi 

 hypercritical to speak of our wisdom teeth as anachronisms;! 

 for if they have anything to do with wisdom we never neededj 

 them more. 



Another kind of anachronism has to do with function. It occa-] 

 sionally happens that an old-fashioned way of doing something per- 

 sists as an aberration. This usually spells disease, for instance ii 

 the excretory system; and it finds few illustrations except in man. 



