J 34 The Upright Attitude of Mankind. [March, 
We conclude, then, that Vaccination is not scientific; 
that it cannot be accurately defined ; that it is completely 
useless for its assumed purpose ; that fortification of the 
body by disease is a mischievous myth, and that the sooner 
the pradtice is discontinued the better it will be for the 
health of the community. 
HI* THE UPRIGHT ATTITUDE OF MANKIND. 
o°«— . 
VERYONE must have heard or have read of the 
supposed perfect adaptation of the human frame to 
11 * e A. locomotion and to an upright attitude, as 
well as oi the advantages which we gain by this eredf 
position. We are told, and with perfect truth, that in man 
the occipital foramen— the aperture through which the brain 
is connected with the spinal cord— is so placed that the head 
is nearly m equilibrium when he stands upright. In other 
Mammalia this aperture lies further back, and takes a more 
oblique direction, so that the head is thrown forwards and 
lequnes to be upheld partly by muscular effort and partly by 
the ligamentum nuchae, popularly known in cattle as the 
pax-wax.” 
Again, the relative lengths of the bones of the hinder ex- 
tremities in man form an obstacle to his walking on all-fours. 
It we keep the legs straight we may touch the ground in 
■S l° Ur | eet t u e t i pS of the fin s ers > but we cannot 
place the palms of the hands upon the ground and use them 
to support any part of our weight in walking. Not a few 
other points of a similar tendency have been so often en- 
larged upon, in works of a teleological character, that there 
can be no need even to specify them at present. 
But till lately it has never been asked “ Is man’s adapta- 
tion to an upright posture perfect ? ” and “ Is this posture 
m se”d bv D "°^ ra „T acks ? ” These questions have been 
imsed by Di. S. V. Clevenger in a Ledture delivered before 
the Chicago University Club, on April 18th, 1882, and 
lecently published in the “American Naturalist.” This 
Ledture, we may add, cost the speaker the chair of Compa- 
lative Anatomy and Physiology at the Chicago University ! 
