160 CHARACTERS OF MAN. 



These accounts furnish no satisfactory proof that any 

 race * of men exists with a skin differently organized or co- 

 vered from what we are acquainted witli. The smoothness 

 and nakedness of the human integuments therefore form a 

 sufficient diagnostic character of our species, as compared 

 to the monkey, or any other nearly allied mammiferous 

 animal ; and this circumstance, with the absence of all fur, 

 spines, bristles, scales, &c., and the want of those natural 

 offensive weapons, fangs, talons, claws, &c., justify us in 

 denominating the human body as naturally unarmed and 

 defenceless. The deticiency is amply made up by the inter- 

 nal faculties, and the arts to which they give rise. 



While man is remarkable for the smoothness of his skin 

 on the whole, some parts are even more covered with hair 

 than in animals ; as, for example, the pubes and axilla, which 

 the ancients consequently regarded as peculiar characters 

 of man. 



In comparing man with the anthropo-morphous simije, it 

 must be noticed further, that one species (satyrus) has no 

 nail on the thumb of the hind-hand ; and the other (troglo- 

 dytes), according to Tyson, has thirteen ribs. Both of 

 them have a sacrum composed of three pieces only instead 

 of five, as in the human subject. One at least (satyrus) has 

 one or two large membranous pouches on the front of the 

 neck, under the platysma myoides, communicating with the 

 cavity of the larynx, between the os hyoides and thyroid 



♦ The skin, like other parts, is subject to occasional varieties of forma- 

 tion. Thus patches of it are sometimes thickly covered with hair, like that 

 on the head. Such accidental varieties, exaggerated by credulity and fraud, 

 have given occasion to reports of persons having hides like animals. Buffon, 

 (Supplement^ v. 4. p. 571). Wunscii ( Kosmolagische Uuterhaltungen, part 

 ?j)y and LavatilR ( Physiog. Fragm. part 4, p. C8), have given figures and de- 

 scriptions of A. M. IIerrig, a woman of Triers, said to have the skin of a 

 deer, and shewn in many parts of Europe. Soemmerring saw this person, 

 and found the peculiarity to consist of numerous and large elevations of the 

 skin, covered by thick and strong hairs. They were of the nature of the moles 

 often seen on the face of very fair persons, and generally giving origin to 

 hairs. He could not discover a single hair resembling (hat of a deer. Jics- 

 chreibung tinigcr MisageburloUf ^. 3*. 



