^ [From The Johns Hopkins Hospital But.l,etin, Vol. XII, Nos. 121-123-123, 

 April-May-June, 1901.] 



ON THE OCCURRENCE OF TAILS IN MAN, WITH A 

 DESCRIPTION OF THE CASE REPORTED BY DR. 

 WATSON. 



By Eoss Granville Harrison, Ph. D., M. D., 



Associate Professor of Anatomy, Johns Hophins University. 



Some years ago Bartels ^ gave an excellent resume of our [96 

 knowledge and beliefs concerning the occurrence of caudal 

 appendages in man, showing that references to this peculiar- 

 ity are to be found as far back as the writings of Pliny and 

 Pausanias. Appended to Bartels^ paper is a map, which 

 shows the various lands supposed at one time or other to have 

 been the haunts of human races with tails. These regions 

 include not only widely distant portions of South America, 

 Asia and Africa, but also the greater part of western Europe. 

 While many of the statements cited by Bartels are to be 

 classed as legendary, it is of interest to note how persistent 

 and wide in range the belief in the existence of such races 

 has been. The most remarkable stories have been told and 

 have found credence; in these the significance of the caudal 

 appendages has been variously interpreted. On the one hand, 

 a tail has been considered a distinction of the highest degree, 

 even a mark of divine descent, as in the case of the Kanas of 

 Poorbunder; ' on the other hand, it has usually been looked 

 upon as a curse or a stigma of degradation.' 



1 M. Bartels: Die geschwanzten Menschen. Archiv f. AnthropoL, Bd, 

 XV, 1884. 



2 These were the rulers of the Jaitwa or Camari, one of the Rajpoot 

 tribes. "They trace their descent from the monkey-god Hanuman, and 

 confirm it by alleging the elongation of the spine of their princes, who 

 bear the epithet ' Pooncheria, or the long-tailed Ranas of Saurashtra.' " — 

 James Tod: Annals and Antiquities of Rajast'han, or the Central and 

 Western Rajpoot States of India, vol. i, London 1829. 



3 Bartels cites an instance of this in the stories regarding a certain 



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