122 THE ASCENT OF MAN 



to the caecum. In the newly-born child it is often 

 absolutely as long as in the full-grown man. This 

 precocity is always an indication that the part was 

 of great importance to the ancestors of the human 

 species." ^ 



So important is the key of Evolution to the 

 modern pathologist that in cases of malformation 

 his first resort is always to seek an explanation in 

 earlier forms of life. It is found that conditions 

 which are pathological in one animal are natural 

 in others of a lower species. When any eccentri- 

 city appears in a human body the anatomist no 

 longer sets it down as a freak of Nature. He 

 proceeds to match it lower down. Mr. Darwin 

 mentions a case of a man who, in his foot alone, 

 had no less than seven abnormal muscles. Each 

 of these was found among the muscles of lower 

 animals. Take, again, a common case of malforma- 

 tion — club-foot. All children before birth display 

 the most ordinary form of this deformity — that, 

 namely, where the sole is turned inwards and 

 upwards and the foot is raised — and it is only 

 gradually that the foot attains the normal adult 

 position. The abnormal position, abnormal that i^ 

 in adult Man, is the normal condition of thing^ 

 in the case of the gorilla. Club-foot, hence, 

 ^ Sutton, Evolution afid Diseasey p. 65. 



