Wilder.] 162 [April 5, 



tunately employed those of man in the erect attitude, and was, 

 moreover so impressed with the prevailing belief that pollex and pri- 

 mus must correspond, that he failed to discover the existence of the 

 idea of symmetry in the distal portions of the membra. 



A few years later, Budd, 79, and Paget, 80, observed some patho- 

 logical evidences of a relation between symmetry and disease, to 

 which I have made some additions in 50. 



A more successful attempt to ascertain how far the membra are 

 truly symmetrical structures, not in a telical sense, as Humphrey re- 

 garded them, but upon the basis of the ideas suggested by Oken and 

 Gerdy, was made by Professor Wyman in 1860, 35. In a verbal 

 communication which it was my good fortune to hear, this eminent 

 anatomist clearly and impartially stated the views of previous authors, 

 and pointed out the objections thereto ; no report is given of this 

 remarkable communication, but as I recollect it, being then a student, 

 and hearing of the subject for the first time, Professor Wyman ex- 

 pressed himself substantially as follows : — 



"In order to compare the upper and lower limbs of man, the skele- 

 ton should be placed in a horizontal attitude ; the limbs then hang 

 downward ; in their natural attitude, with most mammalia, the elbow 

 looks backward and the knee forward; the shafts of the humerus 

 and femur are inclined in opposite directions ; if now the hand 

 be supinated, and the fingers pointed backward, there results a 

 complete symmetrical homology between all parts, until we come to 

 the thumb and grfcat toe ; for the former is now upon the outer bor- 

 der of its limb, and thus opposed to the little toe ; this, difficulty is a 

 very serious one, and there seems to be no satisfactory method of 

 removing it." 



This view of the limbs was afterward freely discussed by Professor 

 Wyman in his laboratory, and was made the basis of later and de- 

 cided expressions of opinion by Folsom, 40, and myself, 45, who were 

 not then able to perceive the full force of the objections which our 

 preceptor had indicated to his own view. 



Three years later, but apparently unaware that Prof. Wyman had 

 treated the subject, Dr. Foltz published his very valuable papers, 39, 

 in which the general subject of symmetry is ably discussed and 

 shown to exist between the membra, even to the digits and dactyls; 

 but, excepting the supination of the manus so as to face the palm 

 forward as the sole' faces backward, Foltz retains the quadrupedal 

 attitude of the membra, and further encumbers his theory with the 



