(FIGURE 1.103 A, B, C, D. Instances of redundant mammary glands and nipples (hypermastism). A a pair of small redundant breasts (with two nipples on the left) above the large normal ones; from a 45-year-old Berlin woman, who had had children 17 times (twins twice). (From Hansemann.) B the highest number: ten nipples (all giving milk), three pairs above, one pair below, the large normal breasts; from a 22-year-old servant at Warschau. (From Neugebaur.) C three pairs of nipples: two pairs on the normal glands and one pair above; from a 19-year-old Japanese girl. D four pairs of nipples: one pair above the normal and two pairs of small accessory nipples underneath; from a 22-year-old Bavarian soldier. (From Wiedersheim.))
The characteristic composition of the vertebrate body develops from the embryonic structure in the same way in man as in all the other vertebrates. As all competent experts now admit the monophyletic origin of the vertebrates on the strength of this significant agreement, and this "common descent of all the vertebrates from one original stem-form" is admitted as an historical fact, we have found the answer to "the question of questions." We may, moreover, point out that this answer is just as certain and precise in the case of the origin of man from the mammals. This advanced vertebrate class is also monophyletic, or has evolved from one common stem-group of lower vertebrates (reptiles, and, earlier still, amphibia). This follows from the fact that the mammals are clearly distinguished from the other classes of the stem, not merely in one striking particular, but in a whole group of distinctive characters.
It is only in the mammals that we find the skin covered with hair, the breast-cavity separated from the abdominal cavity by a complete diaphragm, and the larynx provided with an epiglottis. The mammals alone have three small auscultory bones in the tympanic cavity—a feature that is connected with the characteristic modification of their maxillary joint. Their red blood-cells have no nucleus, whereas this is retained in all other vertebrates. Finally, it is only in the mammals that we find the remarkable function of the breast structure which has given its name to the whole class—the feeding of the young by the mother's milk. The mammary glands which serve this purpose are interesting in so many ways that we may devote a few lines to them here.
As is well known, the lower mammals, especially those which beget a number of young at a time, have several mammary glands at the breast. Hedgehogs and sows have five pairs, mice four or five pairs, dogs and squirrels four pairs, cats and bears three pairs, most of the ruminants and many of the rodents two pairs, each provided with a teat or nipple (mastos). In the various genera of the half-apes (lemurs) the number varies a good deal. On the other hand, the bats and apes, which only beget one young at a time as a rule, have only one pair of mammary glands, and these are found at the breast, as in man.
These variations in the number or structure of the mammary apparatus (mammarium) have become doubly interesting in the light of recent research in comparative anatomy. It has been shown that in man and the apes we often find redundant mammary glands (hyper-mastism) and corresponding teats (hyper-thelism) in both sexes. Figure 1.103 shows four cases of this kind—A, B, and C of three women, and D of a man. They prove that all the above-mentioned numbers may be found occasionally in man. Figure 1.103 A shows the breast of a Berlin woman who had had children seventeen times, and who has a pair of small accessory breasts (with two nipples on the left one) above the two normal breasts; this is a common occurrence, and the small soft pad above the breast is not infrequently represented in ancient statues of Venus. In Figure 1.103 C we have the same phenomenon in a Japanese girl of nineteen, who has two nipples on each breast besides (three pairs altogether). Figure 1.103 D is a man of twenty-two with four pairs of nipples (as in the dog), a small pair above and two small pairs beneath the large normal teats. The maximum number of five pairs (as in the sow and hedgehog) was found in a Polish servant of twenty-two who had had several children; milk was given by each nipple; there were three pairs of redundant nipples above and one pair underneath the normal and very large breasts (Figure 1.103 B).
A number of recent investigations (especially among recruits) have shown that these things are not uncommon in the male as well as the female sex. They can only be explained by evolution, which attributes them to atavism and latent heredity. The earlier ancestors of all the primates (including man) were lower placentals, which had, like the hedgehog (one of the oldest forms of the living placentals), several mammary glands (five or more pairs) in the abdominal skin. In the apes and man only a couple of them are normally developed, but from time to time we get a development of the atrophied structures. Special notice should be taken of the arrangement of these accessory mammae; they form, as is clearly seen in Figure 1.103 B and D, two long rows, which diverge forward (towards the arm-pit), and converge behind in the middle line (towards the loins). The milk-glands of the polymastic lower placentals are arranged in similar lines.
The phylogenetic explanation of polymastism, as given in comparative anatomy, has lately found considerable support in ontogeny. Hans Strahl, E. Schmitt, and others, have found that there are always in the human embryo at the sixth week (when it is three-fifths of an inch long) the microscopic traces of five pairs of mammary glands, and that they are arranged at regular distances in two lateral and divergent lines, which correspond to the mammary lines. Only one pair of them—the central pair—are normally developed, the others atrophying. Hence there is for a time in the human embryo a normal hyperthelism, and this can only be explained by the descent of man from lower primates (lemurs) with several pairs.
But the milk-gland of the mammal has a great morphological interest from another point of view. This organ for feeding the young in man and the higher mammals is, as is known, found in both sexes. However, it is usually active only in the female sex, and yields the valuable "mother's milk"; in the male sex it is small and inactive, a real rudimentary organ of no physiological interest. Nevertheless, in certain cases we find the breast as fully developed in man as in woman, and it may give milk for feeding the young.
(FIGURE 1.104. A Greek gynecomast.)
We have a striking instance of this gynecomastism (large milk-giving breasts in a male) in Figure 1.104. I owe the photograph (taken from life) to the kindness of Dr. Ornstein, of Athens, a German physician, who has rendered service by a number of anthropological observations, (for instance, in several cases of tailed men). The gynecomast in question is a Greek recruit in his twentieth year, who has both normally developed male organs and very pronounced female breasts. It is noteworthy that the other features of his structure are in accord with the softer forms of the female sex. It reminds us of the marble statues of hermaphrodites which the ancient Greek and Roman sculptors often produced. But the man would only be a real hermaphrodite if he had ovaries internally besides the (externally visible) testicles.