MUSCLES 201 



most hard-shelled scholastic, can refuse to the brain organ its 

 predominant share in the making of man. This is seen even in the 

 frigid sphere of science by the difference of interest there is shown 

 between any great discovery bearing on the evolution of man, 

 or on some new lower animal form. When Sir. H. H. Johnston 

 astonished zoologists in 1901 by his discovery and proof of the 

 existence of an archaic large mammal which had been interned 

 for an incalculable time in the Semliki Forest, the thrill felt at that 

 historic meeting passed off veiy soon when the leading British 

 biologist had monographed the Okapi, settled its name and surname 

 and introduced it into text-books. This is never the fate of such as 

 Pithecanthropus or Eoanthropus dawsoni, or of the more recent 

 genealogical theory and researches as to arboreal man. The 

 call of these studies of man's evolution is felt by all, and the difference 

 in the two blanches of biology may account for what must have 

 struck many others, that is the neglect of adding the blue ribbon 

 of science to the honours of the discoverer of the Okapi. 



These few trite remarks as to the importance of the nervous 

 system in the making of man have been introduced here, though 

 they bear more closely on the next two chapters, because this 

 importance comes in at every stage of the present treatment of 

 the origin of modifications in muscle. 



Anatomists' Views of Muscles. 



There is a very strict and austere custom among anatomists, 

 which doubtless is in a measure necessary, of insisting upon following 

 rigorously the homologies of muscles, especially in human anatomy, 

 and in this branch of a greater subject the canons aie followed 

 to an extent that surprises the seeker after origins. A remarkable 

 example of this is in a paper by an eminent anatomist, now Professor 

 at King's College, Dr. E. Barclay Smith. It is a paper on the 

 " Morphology of the short extensor of the human fingers." 1 He says 

 " the precise significance of this occasional extensor brevis digitorum 

 manus is a matter of considerable interest." He gives four possible 

 interpretations of this unusual muscle. The last, viz., that it is 

 derived from a new muscle-germ alone interests us here because of 

 the remarkable caution and austerity of his remarks on this inter- 

 pretation. " If an ext. brevis dig. manus cannot be regarded as an 

 atavistic anomaly, or as a derivative from any existing musculature, 

 the only way in which its presence can be accounted for is to suppose 

 that it is of entirely new origin — the product of a new muscle-germ. 



1 Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Trans., p. 54. 



