The Evolution of Man

by Ernst Haeckel

The kidneys, which act as organs of excretion or urinary organs in all vertebrates, have a very different and elaborate construction in the various sections of this stem; we will consider them further in Chapter 2.29. Here I need only mention that in our hypothetical primitive vertebrate they probably had the same form as in the actual amphioxus—the primitive kidneys (protonephra). These are originally made up of a double row of little canals, which directly convey the used-up juices or the urine out of the body-cavity (Fig. 102 n). The inner aperture of these pronephridial canals opens with a ciliated funnel into the body-cavity; the external aperture opens in lateral grooves of the epidermis, a couple of longitudinal grooves in the lateral surface of the outer skin (Fig. 102 b). The pronephridial duct is formed by the closing of this groove to the right and left at the sides. In all the craniota it develops at an early stage in the horny plate; in the amphioxus it seems to be converted into a wide cavity, the atrium, or peribranchial space.

Next to the kidneys we have the sexual organs of the vertebrate. In most of the members of this stem the two are united in a single urogenital system; it is only in a few groups that the urinary and sexual organs are separated (in the amphioxus, the cyclostoma, and some sections of the fish-class). In man and all the higher vertebrates the sexual apparatus is made up of various parts, which we will consider in Chapter XXIX. But in the two lowest classes of our stem, the acrania and cyclostoma, they consist merely of simple sexual glands or gonads, the ovaries of the female sex and the testicles (spermaria) of the male; the former provide the ova, the latter the sperm. In the craniota we always find only one pair of gonads; in the amphioxus several pairs, arranged in succession. They must have had the same form in our hypothetical prospondylus (Figs. 98, 100 s). These segmental pairs of gonads are the original ventral halves of the cœlom-pouches.

The organs which we have now enumerated in this general survey, and of which we have noted the characteristic disposition, are those parts of the organism that are found in all vertebrates without exception in the same relation to each other, however much they may be modified. We have chiefly had in view the transverse section of the body (Figs. 101, 102), because in this we see most clearly the distinctive arrangement of them. But to complete our picture we must also consider the segmentation or metamera-formation of them, which has yet been hardly noticed, and which is seen best in the longitudinal section. In man and all the more advanced vertebrates the body is made up of a series or chain of similar members, which succeed each other in the long axis of the body—the segments or metamera of the organism. In man these homogeneous parts number thirty-three in the trunk, but they run to several hundred in many of the vertebrates (such as serpents or eels). As this internal articulation or metamerism is mainly found in the vertebral column and the surrounding muscles, the sections or metamera were formerly called pro-vertebræ. As a fact, the articulation is by no means chiefly determined and caused by the skeleton, but by the muscular system and the segmental arrangement of the kidneys and gonads. However, the composition from these pro-vertebræ or internal metamera is usually, and rightly, put forward as a prominent character of the vertebrate, and the manifold division or differentiation of them is of great importance in the various groups of the vertebrates. But as far as our present task—the derivation of the simple body of the primitive vertebrate from the chordula—is concerned, the articulate parts or metamera are of secondary interest, and we need not go into them just now.

Fig. 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. Fig. 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. Fig. 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 Fig. 103 C we have the same phenomenon in a Japanese girl of nineteen, who has two nipples on each breast besides (three pairs altogether). Fig. 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 (Fig. 103 B).