No. 1664

JULY 21, 1855.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ZOOLOGYWITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MAN.

BY ROBERT KNOX, M.D., F.R.S. EDIN.,LECTURER ON ANATOMY, AND CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE ACADEMY

OF MEDICINE OF FRANCE.

"A magnificent temple is a laudable monument of national taste andxeligion; and the enthusiast who entered the dome of St. Sophia might betempted to suppose that it was the residence, or even the workmanship, ofthe Deity. Yet how dull is the artifice, how insignificant is the labour, if itbe compared with the formation of the vilest insect that crawls upon thesurface of the temple !"Gi$soar. Decline and Fall.

PART I.CHAPTER I-I.

CREATIVE Nature adheres to a type which we do not know,- cannot know, but which we are sure- exists. This type is theonly check we can well understand to an infinite variety ofliving beings. There are others, no doubt; the material con-ditions of the external world constituting the existing order ofthings present unquestionably potent checks to an infinitevariety of forms, but as this has been esteemed by some as the--great producing cause of forms, I dwell not on it here, unwil-ling to anticipate that which naturally belongs to a future sec-tion of the work.

This type embraces all living forms from the beginning,When Cuvier discovered the signification of the fossil remainsMe was bound as an anatomist to view many of the extinctanimals as belonging not merely to species, but even to generatotally distinct from those now existing. All this may be con-- ceded without in any way interfering with the grand law of £type, or unity of the organization as some have called it-anexpression open to many objections. Cuvier thought his fossilspecies and genera so distinct from the now existing, as toimply a succession of new creations; for he did not believe inthe conversion of any species into another by the agency ofexternal circumstances, and of the embryonic manifestations;and of their coincidence with the history of living forms on thesurface of the globe he took no account. The views wereGerman, foreign, and, as he thought, pantheistic, and so heunwisely rejected them. I say unwisely, for the phenomenaalluded to being at once material or physical, zoological andanatomical, they had a double claim on his attention. Thefact, as I shall afterwards prove, of an individual of any naturalfamily having, whilst young, the generic characters, was a factwhich so profound a thinker was bound not to overlook. Thismistaken view he afterwards pointedly denied. It still holdsits ground in England, based on a misrepresentation of thedoctrine of transmutation of species. But, in point of fact,there does not seem ever to have been any transmutation ofspecies, the one into another-an ape into a man, a bat into anape. Such views are entirely erroneous, and never were main-tained by any Continental zoologist. The only transmutationwhich Nature knows is the development, in time and place, ofnatural families and species already provided for in the struc-ture of the embryo-as thus: the existing elephants, which toCuvier seemed to belong not merely to different species, but- even genera from the extinct, and thus to form a new creation,are only new species and genera as observed by man; the naturalfamily, as planned by Nature, includes in every embryo theelements of all these species which can only be developed whenthe necessary conditions of existence are present.

Centres of creation-a term much used by my esteemedfriend and former student, Mr. E. Forbes, can have no mean-ing in a philosophic sense, other than marking the area wherecertains forms of life first found the geographical and geologicalconditions essential to their development, their well-being, andtheir persistence. The same applies to man. The Negro, theSaab, the Mongol are not the descendants of each other, nor ofthe white races, nor vicevel’sâ: they are forms of development ofspecies from individuals, each possessing within them the ele-mentary forms of all the species of the natural family to whichthey belong. All that is required for their appearance onearth is the geographical, and, above all, the geological con-ditions under which they can exist. When these are found,the region becomes what is called a centre of creation, fromwhich the forms spread, under the limitations which Natureprescribes to herself.

In spreading from centres, man has both advantages and dis-advantages over other animals, which I shall endeavour toshow in its due place; but generally speaking the species ofeach great sub-family are much more limited in their area thanmight at first be supposed.As with man, so with the elephant, so with the rhinoceros,

horse, &c. What we call species have no real existence inNature, she filling up the links and gaps, which in humansystems constitute the specific and generic differences. Theembryo of the young of any species of the Salmonidas, forexample, includes in its internal structure, and externalcoloration and robe, the characteristics of all the species of allthe genera which exist, or probably ever existed; so that it

depends merely on circumstances clearly physical and externalwhich species is to appear first, which last, in the zoologicalhistory of the world. The possible of every species is alwayspresent in the embryo of every species; the real is that which- alone interests man. By real, I mean the developed adultindividual then and there present to his thoughts. Embryonicforms, and the history of life on the globe, prove the possibleto be quite as real as the specialized adult individual. Whatforms, for example, man has assumed, or may assume, is toexisting man a matter of minor importance. He looks to whatis. As in other animals, of all species, the human embryo in-cludes within it the elements for the development of most, ifnot of all, the natural species now existing. It depends;then, on time and place what specialized or fully developedform the embryo is to assume. Each species has its own de-velopment and its specialized individualism. The teleologicalargument, that the one is an improvement on the others, Ileave to be handled by the metaphysician. I believe it to beessentially wrong, and involves or includes that very doctrinewhich these persons most dread admitting-namely, the trans-mutation of species. All species are perfect in their way, butit is the embryo alone which is perfect in every sense, and itsdevelopment may be either progressive or retrogressive. I usethese phrases as expressing merely human views; Nature admitsof no such ideas. So far, to her all are alike. By progressivedevelopment, I mean that which tends towards the highestspecialization of the individual; by retrogressive developmentis meant, the development of forms other than those of thespecies to which the individual belongs.

It was natural for Cuvier, the discoverer of the applicationof descriptive anatomy to science, to exaggerate its importancein natural history. It led him on to the still more serious errorof underrating the value of external characters. When theosteology and dentition of two species strongly resembled eachother, he questioned their title to be called distinct. Thus thedoctrine led to the confounding the dog with the wolf-jackaland fox. The various species of oxen were viewed as one; andbut for its glaring absurdity, the ass and horse would havebeen viewed as belonging to one species. Anatomically, theystrongly resemble each other; now look at the exterior! Thesame remark applies to man; but in him, besides a morestrongly marked exterior, the anatomical differences in theraces are much more strongly marked than between the horse,ass, zebra, &c.The great law of type, to which I return, must be investi-

gated, then-1st, by the comparative anatomy of the adultindividual; 2ndly, by the anatomy of the embryo. It wasnatural first to test it by the comparative anatomy of the adultindividual. Whilst yet a student with Kielmayer, the greattheory of unity of type burst on the mind of Goethe, and wasinstantly developed. The anatomical studies of a singlewinter and summer revealed to his vast mind the wholetruth.

If we select any natural family of animals, we shall findthat species are only distinct and manifest so long as we havenot before us all the forms the family has assumed in time.This misled the great Cuvier. He fancied the fossil elephant,rhinoceros, horse, bear, tiger, hysena, &c., to belong to distinctand extinct species, and even genera; and so they do in asense, but when all are brought together, and placed at oncebefore the eye, his generic and specific anatomical distinctionsbreak down, showing that the fossil and the recent form butone continuous uninterrupted living world, in as far as ana-tomical forms are concerned. And yet I will not deny thatspecies do not exist, for, after all. our inability to discriminatethem may arise from man’s limited faculties. My esteemedfriend, Dr. Andrew Smith, informs me that, some years ago,he placed before him the various known species of the naturalfamily of the alcaudae, and in presence of such an ordeal, allthe pretended specific external characters of naturalists com-pletely broke down. When, in 1817, I first dissected the ser-

46

pents of Southern Africa, I fancied that as regards the den-tition there existed a clear distinction between those withpoison fangs and those without; and, in a practical sense, thereis. But when I began to dissect the serpents of the globe, andnot those of any particular region, I quickly found that theuniversal alone was true : that Nature admits or recognisesno such gaps in her works as man chooses to discover. Thatcertain species of serpents carry poison fangs alone on the

upper maxillary bones is true; but as there are many whichcarry harmless teeth as well on the same bones, the fact be-comes of little or no value scientifically or practically.Human bones, in a strictly fossil condition, have not as yet

been found, though some have been discovered in situations,arguing on modern geological views, a vast antiquity. Thismatter I may discuss hereafter. But what I chiefly insist onhere is this, the human bones discovered in regions now tem-perate, resemble those races. at present inhabiting the hottestregions of the earth; and it has been hastily inferred from acomparison of the cranium, that these fossils must have been theforefathers of the now existing coloured races; and eertcethey were no doubt, but not specifically, any more than the fossilcarnivora were the direct special predecessors of the nowex-isting tigers, panthers, and leopards. The Esquimaux craniumunmistakably belongs to the dark races of men; well, had therace been extinct, and these bones alone discovered in thePolar arch, it would have been inferred that they could nothave lived there, but must have migrated from a hotter regionand there perished. Now, nothing of this is true. Theircentre of creation, using the expression as I have explained it,is the Arctic circle, within and near to which they live. Thatcircle has undergone great changes no doubt, and man mayhave changed with them; but no species of man has ever yetbeen discovered with clearly marked pithecian forms, and theanatomy which finds strong resemblances between man andapes, is, to say the least of it, singularly coarse. The con-necting links, or natural families between them, have notbeen found; they may not have existed as yet, though sure tocome. As to human embryonic forms allied so closely to thelower specialities, I speak not of them here; instead of beingcomposed of one great natural family not divisible into others,it is quite probable that in the human family there are sub.families in a fossil or recent state not yet discovered; allwhich species, the embryo of every species comprises withinits structure, ready to be developed under favourable circum-stances. But, this is certain, these species cannot be pro-duced under the existing order of things, nor are they directdescendants of each other.Thus species would seem to be excluded from Nature’s plan,

but the idea remains in man’s conception; and, after all, it mayturn out that species is a distinct manifestation of the real, butceases to be observed by man when the characteristics are sominute as to escape his powers of observation. But be it as itmay, nothing in either view affects the great laws of unity oftype-unity of organization-of all, the past, the present, andthe future. ’’ All the parts of an animal, taken together orseparately, ought to be found in all animals." This was thedoctrine formuled by Goethe, in 1780, from an instinctive con-viction, sixty years before its admission into France-where itis not yet generally received-and ninety years before ib hadgained as adherents three or four scientific men in Britain; themass reject it as pure nonsense.

" Peut on deduire les os de crane de ceux des vertebres, etexpliquer ainsi leur formes et leur fonctions." Here is thewhole question formuled. In 1790 he arrives at the determina-tion that the cranium is composed of six vertebrea:-

3 Posteriorly- 3 Anteriorly-1. Occipital 1 1. Palatine Bones2. Posterior Sphenoid I 2. Superior Maxillary3. Anterior Sphenoid I 3. Inter Maxillary

These agree with the elaborate inquiry of Agassiz’ collaborateur,Voght. Goethe mentions that the thought first struck himwhilst looking at a portion of the backbone and cranium of asheep in the Jews’ Cemetery of Weimar. Happy and immortalthought suggested the emblems of death.

Whilst Goethe thus placed on a sure and unalterable founda-tion the basis of the transcendental in anatomy, as derivedfrom the study of the adult and specialized individual form, hequickly saw that a study of the embryo was also essential tocomplete his views. Cuvier in the meantime, adhering to thecomparative anatomy of the adult, mode his grand discoveryof the signification of the ossemens fossiles-a discovery entitlinghim to the thanks of all mankind. He fancied that he had

also laid the basis of a new system of zoology; but this was amistake. Linne and Buffon had left but little to be sleaned

in that field. But, pergisting in this route, and neglecting ormisunderstanding the lights shed by embryology over thephilosophy of zoology, he left to Geoffroy and other followersof the German school the pursuit of the transcendental, alone-equal to explain the meaning of forms. As a natural conse-quence, he, as Hunter had done, wandered into that boundlessregion of detail, which Geoffroy early discovered to be withoutbounds as without result. But even in this remarkable dis-

covery, (for it is one,) Geoffroy was long anticipated by Goethe,who characterized the attempt as "Un travail impossible,infini, que si par miracle il s’accomplira un jour, sera sans

resultat comme sans limites." This early occurred to Geoffroy,to myself, to others. Cuvier’s pupils did not see this; theywere his pupils. Meckel followed in the same track, and his’great work on Comparative Anatomy fell dead from the press.

In Cuvier’s hands, Comparative Anatomy assumed a newand more philosophic form ; with him it meant the descriptiveanatomy of the adult of all species. He discovered the valueof this new element of science, and by its means explained themeaning of the fossil remains-a discovery which has no equal.By its means he became the founder of true geology and palae-ontology, explaining the past by the present. But he declinedexplaining the present by the past ; this was reserved forGoethe, Oken, Geoffroy, and others. With Cuvier closed anoera-the sera of comparative anatomy as he viewed it. It hadperformed its mission, and therefore cannot be resuscitated, atleast for the same purposes. Another element of sciencethrew it into the shade-embryology. It is true that Goethe,with an inspiration almost divine, had shown that, in the com-parative anatomy of adult forms, the secrets of embryology andof palaeontology were wrapped up ; and discovered, in fact, thetranscendental. But it required a more exact embryology thanwas known to him to give the new doctrine a basis, and thissoon followed.The aera, of Cuvier, then, was closed-wound up by a higher

generalization. But the influence of his grand discoveries willand piust continue for ages. The thanks of mankind are forever due to him who, next to Galileo, has the most contributedto extend the sphere of human mental vision. He belongedeminently to the positive age, the age of facts; by them hestood, reckless of consequences, at least for a time. He gaveto man a new and a true History of the Globe.

CONSIDERATIONS RESPECTING

PARALYSIS OF THE SYMPATHETIC,AND ITS RELATION TO

NEURALGIA, AGUE, AND SOME ASTHENIC INFLAMMATIONS.

BY C. HANDFIELD JONES, M.B., F.R.C.P., F.R.S.,ASSISTANT-PHYSICIAN TO ST. MARY’S HOSPITAL.

THE reflection must often occur to those who are best in-structed in the science, and most skilled in the practice, of theirprofession, that there exists a sadly-wide hiatus in too manypoints between the one and the other. Very far are we, toooften, from being able to give a sound reason as to why wefollow such or such a plan of treatment, or give such or sucha remedy. The sound practitioner, who abhors the idea ofquackery, will hail every gleam of light that tends to showmore clearly the nature of various disorders which his practicalskill enables him to deal with more or less successfully, althoughhe cannot tell exactly on what principle his treatment is based.I do not pretend, in the following observations, to do morethan to attempt to throw a little additional light on thepathology and treatment of some rather obscure affections.

In Dr. Graves’ "Clinical Medicine," (lst edition, p. 868,)there is a very interesting case recorded, of which the pro-minent symptoms were severe paroxysmal attacks of pain,heat, and vascular congestion of both feet and legs as high asthe calf. The attacks generally commenced at night, withheat and tingling of the sole of the foot; as it proceeded, theparts affected became more and more hypersemic, till at lengththey were swollen, smooth, and shining, and almost the colourof a ripe black cherry. "When the hot fit ceases, the slightswelling and this discoloration subside, and the affected partsremain during the next stage, pale, deadly cold, and com-paratively free from pain. While one leg is in the hot stage,the opposite leg is cold and pale, but free from pain; but assoon as the pain and heat have disappeared in the limb firstaffected, the same series of phenomena commence in the otherleg, and last for the same length of time; after which bothlimbs are in their natural state, and for two or three hours she