Perfection of the human form—The covering of hair—The dentition in general and the wisdom teeth—The vermiform appendage—Appendicitis and its gravity—Uselessness of the cæcum and of the large intestine—Instance of a woman without a large intestine—Ancestral history of this portion of the digestive tract—Injurious effect of the microbes of the large intestine—Frequency of cancer of the large intestine and of the stomach—Limited usefulness of the stomach—The instinct of choice of food—Futility of this instinct in man
Although he is a recent arrival on the earth, man has made great progress as compared with his ancestors, the anthropoid apes. A comparison between even the lower races of man, such as the Hottentots or the aborigines of Australia and higher types such as the inhabitants of Europe and of North Africa, shows that a very great advance has been made.
Human art has been able to surpass nature in many instances. No natural sound is so perfect as some of the more beautiful pieces of modern music. Even in the production of form, man has triumphed over nature. Breeders of flowers or of birds seek to produce new varieties. With this object they often frame a conception of what they desire to produce, and, so to speak, set about to realise their programme. They prepare ideal images to serve them as guides in the process of production. By the method of artificial selection they often succeed in their wishes, and add to their collections some remarkable form. In such fashions aviculture and horticulture have produced birds and flowers more beautiful than any found in nature.
In regard to the human body, attempts have been made to surpass nature and to represent a body corresponding to an artistic ideal. To arrive at something more beautiful than man, the wings of birds or the characters of some other creatures have been added to his presentment. Such attempts have had no other result than to show that the human form, as created by nature, cannot be surpassed. The ancient conception of the human body as the artistic ideal has been fully justified. The views of those religious fanatics who have thrown contempt on the body by representing it in degraded forms, must be rejected.
It is impossible, however, to apply this result to our conception of the nature of man in general. The beautiful form of the human body appears only in youth and in maturity. In old age, the bodies of men and women are generally ugly, and in extreme old age it is almost impossible to see the traces of former beauty.
Nor can conceptions of perfection drawn from the human face and body be extended to the whole of man’s organisation. A glance at some of the organic systems will make this plain.
The human skin is covered with little hairs, the history of which is interesting. In one stage of embryonic life nearly the whole of the body is clad with hairs. This covering is known as the lanugo, and consists of strands of hair, disposed very regularly all over the body, save on the nose and the hands and feet. There is no doubt but that this is functionless, and is no more than an inheritance from the old ape-like condition. Later on, it falls out and is replaced by the ordinary downy covering of the body. In adult life, and particularly in old age, the hairs of the second coat tend to grow very long and so to form a covering that is neither beautiful nor in the least degree useful. We may take this as a first example of a disharmonious condition in the human body. Hairs, incapable of protecting the body from cold, survive merely as an ancestral relic and may become even harmful.
The human skin is constantly exposed to the microbes in dust; and the follicles of the hairs, in which these microbes lodge, form receptacles very favourable to their multiplication. In the hollows of the follicles, certain microbes, as for instance some of the Staphylococci, multiply rapidly and give rise to acne and to pimples. The process may even go the length of producing a chronic skin-disease very unpleasant and even dangerous if it be associated with suppuration.
In the human race, intelligence, that is to say, the activity of the brain, supplants many other functions, and man is able to protect himself against the inclemencies of weather much better than his furry ancestors were capable of doing. He is able to do this through his invention of clothing which may be varied with the nature of the weather. But the obstinate laws of inheritance burden him with a covering of hair, not only useless but frequently harmful. And this is only one example among many.
Although, in an extreme case, man is able to survive the total loss of the teeth, it cannot yet be said that teeth are useless or harmful. None the less, a study of the human dentition reveals that this set of organs is out of harmony with the fundamental needs of our race. The monkeys of the old world (Catarrhines), although they belong obviously to the brute creation, already exhibit a tendency to reduction in the number of teeth. While American monkeys (Platyrrhines) may possess thirty-six teeth, the old world forms do not possess more than thirty-two in all, at least as a normal occurrence. Selenka[67] has shown that among gorillas and ourangs individuals with a fourth pair of molars, bringing up the number of teeth to thirty-six, are not rare. He found these additional molars in 20 per cent. of one hundred and ninety-four adult skulls of ourangs. On the other hand, in the cases of the chimpanzee and the gibbon, the third pair of molars differ from the others in smaller size and occasional absence. This reduction is to be associated with the smaller jaws and less powerful mastication of these anthropoids.
Cases of supplementary molars are very rare in man, and occur more frequently in the lower races, such as negroes, Australians, and natives of New Caledonia.[68] On the other hand, absence of the third pair of molars, that is to say, of the wisdom teeth, is quite frequent, especially in the white races. Nearly 10 per cent. of Europeans throughout their lives have no more than twenty-eight teeth, the wisdom teeth being absent. This absence is more common in the upper jaw, where it occurs in from 18 to 19 per cent. of men. The loss of the wisdom teeth[69] is on the whole to be regarded as an advantage. Certainly from the “physiological point of view the part played by the wisdom teeth is subordinate. Their power of masticating is feeble; the loss does not appreciably interfere with mastication. The complete absence of all four has no influence on mastication.”[70] These teeth are cut very late, often not appearing until the thirtieth year and sometimes being delayed to extreme old age.
Even if they were only useless, the wisdom teeth would furnish an instance of disharmony in the human body. But these teeth often are a source of trouble which, although it is not often serious, may lead to grave diseases and even to death. No other teeth are so subject to accident. This is due partly to the slowness with which they develop and to the difficulty they encounter in cutting the mucous membrane. Dental caries, moreover, is specially frequent in them.[71] The membrane surrounding them is specially subject to small lesions by which the infection spreads to adjacent parts. Inflammatory conditions frequently arise from these teeth, and tumours, caries of the jaw-bone and even diffused suppuration, leading to death, may be sequelæ of wounds of the wisdom teeth. Galippe[72] has described a case in which one of these teeth, failing to cut the gum in the normal position, made its way through the cheek. This produced an inflammatory suppuration of the cheek with numerous fistulæ and an inflammation of the masseter muscle which made it impossible for the mouth to open. Notwithstanding the extraction of the wisdom tooth that had been the cause of all these troubles, the patient died of meningitis, which had started from the tooth. Other cases have been described in which a difficult eruption of the tooth led to formation of an abscess in the bone, from which there arose a fatal abscess of the brain.
Wisdom teeth may be the starting-point even of cancerous tumours. Magitot[73] writes that very many neoplasms of the jaw may be traced to a source of origin in the socket of the wisdom tooth.
There is no useful function of these teeth to set against their disadvantages. It was our remote ancestors, masticating hard food, that had the advantages of these additional teeth. In man they are rudimentary organs, and provide another proof of our simian origin.
The cæcal or vermiform appendage is another rudimentary organ in the human body, and is interesting from many points of view. I have already referred to its importance as definite evidence of our origin from lower animals, and shown how striking is the resemblance of the human organ to that of the anthropoid apes. It consists of a thick wall, containing glands, a muscular layer and lymphoid clumps. That it performs no function useful to man is made clear by the existence of undisturbed health in persons from whom it has been removed. Thanks to the advances of modern surgery, this organ has been removed very often, and sometimes even in cases where it did not appear to have been diseased. In a great majority of the cases, the removal of the organ succeeded well, and the patients experienced no harm, but appeared to carry on all the processes of digestion with equal completeness.
On the other hand, the cæcal appendage in man is frequently obliterated, there being no trace of the normal aperture, so that there is no connection between it and the general digestive cavity. According to Ribbert,[74] nearly one person in four possesses the appendage in an obliterated condition, the condition being particularly frequent in the aged. In young persons and infants the aperture of the appendage is usually open. In cases where there is no communication with the cavity of the digestive tract, the processes of digestion appear to be normal. It is logical to conclude that in the human being the function of the cæcum is either absent or very slight.
Even in the anthropoid apes the appendage of the cæcum appears to be a rudimentary structure, with a function at most accessory to that of the lymphoid clumps. In lower old world monkeys the vermiform appendage does not usually exist, cases such as that of Cercopithecus sabaeus, in which it is present as a little boss, being rare. It is necessary to seek the purpose of this structure still lower in the scale of life. In some herbivorous creatures the cæcum is large, and ends in a portion richly provided with lymphoid tissue, and similar to the vermiform appendage. The rabbit and certain marsupials are good examples. Undoubtedly, in their cases, the portion of the digestive canal which corresponds to the vermiform appendage of man is active in the digestion of vegetable matter. The organ is a very old part of the constitution of mammals, and it is because it has been preserved long after its function has disappeared that we find it occurring in the body of man.
Rudimentary organs for the most part display a congenital lack of the power of resistance, and, as Darwin suggested, for this reason they are frequently the seats of disease. When Darwin wrote his work on the “Descent of Man,” more than a quarter of a century ago, many fatal cases of inflammation of the appendage had not been recorded. Darwin quoted only two cases as known to him. Since then, appendicitis (the name given by American surgeons to the first acute or to the chronic inflammation of the appendage) has become a well-known disease in Europe and America, and occupies considerable space in treatises on the pathology of the digestive tract.
To give an idea of the prevalence of appendicitis, I may mention that in a single Paris hospital (Hôpital Trousseau) four hundred and forty-three cases of the disease have been treated in the five years 1895–1899.[75] In many of these cases the subjects were infants, as these as a rule are much more subject to appendicitis than are the aged. According to Treves,[76] the well-known English surgeon, 36 per cent. of the observed cases were under twenty years of age. Among old men, on the other hand, appendicitis is a rare exception. The varying incidence of the disease at different ages no doubt depends on the fact that in old age the appendage is often obliterated. The more easy communication with the other portion of the gut may be, the more chance there is for inflammation to occur. As it has a muscular layer, the appendage is able to void its fœcal contents; and a Scotch surgeon, Parker Syms,[77] has seen an appendage that he had removed, in the act of writhing about like an earthworm. Such movements, undoubtedly, would aid the discharge of the contents of the cavity.
The movements of the appendage, however, are usually feeble, and thus stagnation of the contents is common. Foreign matter is often found in the cavity, such as the pips of fruit, seeds, hairs, thorns, and in rare cases pins or even tin-tacks. Such bodies are capable of wounding the inner wall of the appendage, and so giving an opportunity to the microbes that abound in the digestive tube, with the result that microbial infection and inflammation of the organ is produced. Often, too, intestinal worms pass into the appendage and become the carriers of pathogenic organisms.
Appendicitis is usually a grave disease, and is fatal in from 8 to 10 per cent. of cases. It would be difficult to find anywhere else in the human body so flagrant a case of natural disharmony. The organ in question may be obliterated or removed without disturbance of function, and, moreover, in its normal condition is a frequent cause of serious illness!
The vermiform appendage is not the only part of the digestive canal that is out of harmony with the maintenance of life and health. The cæcum itself, of which the appendage is only a portion, is degenerating in the human body, as I stated in the last chapter. The human cæcum, in fact, is very little developed in comparison with the cæcum of most herbivorous animals, in which it is a true organ of digestion. In the human embryo the cæcum and the appendage are relatively better developed than they are in the adult.
Disharmony is exhibited in the human body not only by rudimentary organs such as the wisdom teeth and the appendage, or by degenerating organs such as the cæcum. Some very large parts of our alimentary canal must be regarded as useless inheritances, bequeathed to us by our animal ancestors. It is no longer rash to say that not only the rudimentary appendage and the cæcum but the whole of the large intestine are superfluous, and that their removal would be attended with happy results. So far as digestion goes, the latter portion of the alimentary tract is of little importance. Even from the point of view of absorption of the products of digestion its importance is strictly secondary. And so it is not astonishing to find that the removal or disappearance of nearly the whole of the large intestine can be supported well by man.
As one result of the astonishing progress of surgery, it has been found possible to excise certain parts of the gut, and particularly of the large intestine. Thus, in one case, Körte[78] removed, along with part of the small intestine, a considerable part of the large intestine, leaving in place only the terminal portion. The patient, who underwent eight successive abdominal operations, recovered. In the case[79] of another patient, operated on by Wiesinger, two coils of the large intestine (the transverse and descending colons) which were ulcerated, were isolated from the remainder of the gut, while the upper portion of the large intestine (the cæcum and the ascending colon) was sutured to the rectum. In spite of these serious interferences with natural structure, the patients recovered, and appeared to derive great advantage from the loss of the large intestine.
I have quoted only two out of many similar cases. However, apart from surgical evidence, there exists proof of the uselessness of the large intestine in man. The best argument in favour of the proposition may be drawn from the case of a woman who for thirty-seven years discharged the waste matter from the alimentary canal through an intestinal fistula. The latter had opened spontaneously, as the result of an abscess seated on the right side of the abdomen. Her complaint, however, had not prevented her from marrying, from bearing three children, nor from pursuing an arduous calling. The person in question, who was a workwoman in Varsovie, was examined by a surgeon, M. Ciechomski,[80] thirty-five years after the establishment of the fistula. The surgeon proposed to operate, hoping to restore her to the normal condition, and the woman consented. However, when the abdominal cavity was opened, it appeared that the large intestine had atrophied along the whole length, from the cæcum to the rectum; the inner orifice of the fistula had passed into the digestive tract above the cæcum, opening into the small intestine. In the circumstances it was impossible to close the fistula, and the surgeon had to close up the abdominal wall, leaving the patient in her former condition. The woman recovered rapidly, and continued her usual mode of life. She came under observation again two years later, but since then had been lost sight of. The fact that a human being was capable of carrying on an apparently normal life for thirty years in the absence of a large intestine is good proof that the organ in question is not necessary to man, although it has not yet become rudimentary. In this case again, to find the useful stage of the structure, we have to go to our remote ancestors.
The large intestine is much better developed in most herbivorous mammals than it is in carnivorous forms. Although it is useless in the digestion of animal food, it has an undisputed importance in the digestion of vegetable matter. It has a very large calibre in herbivorous creatures, and the voluminous cavity contains quantities of microbes which are able to digest cellulose. As cellulose is a material that resists the ordinary processes of digestion, it is easy to see the advantage derived from the harbouring of the microbes. It is more than probable that in the horse, the rabbit, and in some other mammals, that live exclusively on grain and herbage, the large intestine is necessary for normal life.
On the other hand, the large intestine discharges a function similar to that of the urinary bladder. The urine, which is being secreted continuously by the kidneys, accumulates in the large reservoir provided by the bladder. Similarly the waste matter from the processes of digestion accumulate in the large intestine and remain there for a longer or shorter period.
In studying the natural history of the large intestine, it striking that this portion of the gut is well developed only among mammals. These animals, for the most part, lead an extremely active terrestrial life. Most of them have to move about very quickly, the predacious forms in pursuit of their prey, the herbivorous forms to escape from their enemies. In such a mode of life, the need to stop in order to empty the intestines would be a serious disadvantage, and the possibility of retaining the dejecta in a large reservoir would be very useful.[81]
Such are the causes that have determined the growth of the large intestine among mammals. Birds, which live, so to speak, in the air, and which do not need to arrest their locomotion in order to void their excreta, have no large intestine. Reptiles and amphibia, although they live a terrestrial life, do not require a voluminous large intestine, and such is not found among them. These animals do not have a fixed temperature; they are what we know as “cold-blooded,” and in consequence are small eaters. Most of them are sluggish, and do not lead an active existence like that of mammals.
In the legacy acquired by man from his animal ancestors, there occur not only rudimentary organs that are useless or harmful, but fully developed organs equally useless. The large intestine must be regarded as one of the organs possessed by man and yet harmful to his health and his life. The large intestine is the reservoir of the waste of the digestive processes, and this waste stagnates long enough to putrefy. The products of putrefaction are harmful. When fæcal matter is allowed to remain in the intestine, as in cases of constipation, a common complaint, certain products are absorbed by the organism and produce poisoning, often of a serious nature. Every one knows that a high temperature may be the result of constipation in women after childbirth, or in patients recovering from an operation. This is due to an absorption of substances produced by the microbes of the large intestine. Similar products may be the cause of an attack of acne or of other skin diseases. In fine, the presence of a large intestine in the human body is the cause of a series of misfortunes. The organ is the seat of many grave diseases, among which dysentery is notable. In some tropical climates dysentery is a serious scourge. According to Rhey,[82] it is “the greatest danger to which a European is subjected in Tonkin. It is responsible for more than 30 per cent. of the deaths caused by disease.” European troops pay it a large annual toll in the colonies of the French and English.
Malignant tumours seem to display a predilection for this region of the digestive tract. Thus, among 1148 cases of cancer of the alimentary tract recorded in the Prussian hospitals in 1895 and 1896, 1022, or 89 per cent., affected the large intestine, including the rectum and cæcum.[83] The small intestine is the only part of the digestive tract that is indispensable, and it is attacked to a much smaller extent, providing only 11 per cent. of the cases of intestinal cancer. The probable explanation of these facts is that the contents of the gut remain in the small intestine a shorter time than in the large.
Stagnation is a familiar cause of disease, and is the probable cause of the frequency of cancer of the stomach. Of 10,537 cases of cancer of all parts of the digestive tract recorded in the Prussian hospitals in the same period, 4288, or more than 40 per cent., affected the stomach. The latter organ is one that the human body would do well to be rid of. It is not so useless as the large intestine, since it is the chief seat of digestion of albuminous substances, but the small intestine could take its place. Moreover, cases are known in which surgeons have removed cancerous stomachs. The results of such operations were favourable, to the extent that the patients survived and were able to absorb sufficient nourishment. They had to eat rather more frequently, and performed the processes of digestion by means of the secretions of the small intestine and pancreas.
It is not surprising to find so many instances of useless or harmful organs in the alimentary tract. Our ancestors were creatures that fed on crude and rough materials, such as wild plants and unprepared flesh. Man has learned to cultivate plants that are digested easily, and to prepare his meats in such a fashion as to be readily digested. The organs that were adapted to the mode of life of the animal predecessors of man have become to a large extent superfluous. Many creatures that have found the opportunity of obtaining their nutriment in a highly digestible condition have lost, more or less completely, the digestive organs. Many parasites are instances of this, as for example the tape-worms, which live in the human digestive tract, bathed by a nutritive fluid which they absorb directly; they have lost the digestive tract completely.
In the case of man such an evolution has not occurred, and there remains in the body a harmful organ like the large intestine. In consequence, it is impossible for him to take his nutriment in the most perfect form. If he were only to eat substances that could be almost completely absorbed, the large intestine would be unable to empty itself, and serious complications would be produced. A satisfactory system of diet has to make allowance for this, and in consequence of the structure of the alimentary canal, has to include in the food bulky and indigestible materials such as vegetables.
At this point I may refer to a topic of considerable general interest. Animals, in the choice of food for themselves or for their young, are guided by a blind and innate instinct. As I have shown in my second chapter, creatures like the fossorial wasps select only particular species of spiders or insects. Instinct directs them to the kind of food best suited to the wants of their progeny. Bees are attracted by the sweet juices of flowers; the silkworm instinctively devours the leaves of the mulberry and rejects most other plants. In higher animals, instinct plays the chief part in the choice of food. The difficulty of getting rats to eat poisoned food is well known; an instinct warns them of the danger of the material offered to them. In the same way dogs refrain from food that has been poisoned.
Every one has seen the minute attention bestowed by a monkey on food before beginning to eat it. It turns over what is offered, smells it carefully, cleans it, and before beginning to eat, subjects it to an examination that seems to us ridiculous. Monkeys often throw away food without even biting it. None the less, in spite of an instinct so highly developed, monkeys poison themselves with all sorts of dangerous substances, even when these exhale a strange odour. I have seen monkeys die poisoned by the phosphorus of matches, or even by iodoform which they had contrived to steal.
In the case of man, aberrations of instinct in the choice of food are common. As soon as babies begin to walk, they lay hold of everything and try to eat it. Bits of paper, lumps of sealing-wax, the mucous matter from the nose, all appear to them to be things to eat. Constant guard has to be kept to prevent them from doing themselves an injury. Fruits and berries they cannot resist. Cases of poisoning very naturally are extremely frequent, and as every one must know of instances, I shall mention only a single case. “Messrs. Beadle and Sons, oil manufacturers at Boston, had thrown out, from the door of their establishment, a quantity of castor beans that were decayed and useless. Some children playing in the street mistook the seeds for pistachio nuts, and shared them with their friends. All the children seem to have eaten of them, with the result that more than seventy showed serious symptoms of poisoning.”[84]
The consumption of ergotised rye and of maize contaminated with certain leguminous plants (Lathyrus) frequently produces epidemics of poisoning without instinct intervening to protect the victims.
While the large intestine, acting as an asylum of harmful microbes, is a source of intoxication from within, the aberrant instinct of man leads him to poison himself from without with alcohol and ether, opium and morphia. The widespread results of alcoholism show plainly the prevalent existence in man of a want of harmony between the instinct for choosing food and the instinct of preservation.
The digestive apparatus, then, affords abundant proof of the imperfection and disharmony of our nature. Moreover, there are many other proofs, as I shall show in the chapters to follow.
The digestive organs are not alone amongst the parts of the human body in exhibiting a greater or lesser disharmony. More than fifty years ago, a great German physiologist, Johannes Müller, showed that although the human eye was regarded as a very perfect organ, its power of correction for aberration of light was poor. Helmholz, another famous German man of science, stated that the optical study of the eye brought complete disillusion. “Nature,” he said, “seems to have packed this organ with mistakes, as if with the avowed purpose of destroying any possible foundation for the theory that organs are adapted to their environment.” Not only the eye, but the other organs by means of which we are conscious of the outside world, present natural disharmony. Therein lies the cause of our want of certainty about the sources of our perceptions. Memory, the faculty that registers our mental processes, becomes active much later than other faculties lodged in the brain. If the new-born human child were relatively as well developed as the young guinea-pig, it is probable that we should know far more as to the history of our consciousness of the external world. But without lingering over the disharmonies in our senses and faculties, I shall pass at once to a consideration of the apparatus for maintaining the species.
I have shown that the alimentary tract, the chief organ involved in the maintenance of the individual life, affords no proof of the theory that human nature is perfect. Is it the case that the organs of reproduction give a better result? When I wished to describe the most perfect examples of harmony to be found amongst plants, I chose the mechanism by which fertilisation is accomplished in flowers. The persistence of the species is secured, in the case of flowers, by a marvellous series of structures and functions.
Is the maintenance of the human species similarly provided for? A detailed investigation of the male and female human reproductive organs shows that these contain parts of diverse origin. The apparatus contains portions of extremely ancient origin, and portions that have been acquired recently. The internal organs display traces of a remote hermaphroditism. In the male, there occur traces of the female apparatus, rudiments of the uterus and fallopian tubes. In the female, on the other hand, rudiments of the male structure persist. These traces date very far back in the history of the race, for they occur also in most other vertebrates. The facts seem to indicate that, at a very remote period, the ancestral vertebrates were hermaphrodite, and that they became divided into males and females only gradually, still retaining in each sex traces of the other sex. Such traces occur frequently, even in adult man, in the form of rudimentary organs (known as the organs of Weber, of Rosenmüller, and so forth). The rudiments not only are functionless but sometimes, as frequently happens with atrophied structures, form the starting-point of monstrous growths, or of tumours that interfere with health. Thus the hypertrophy of a part of the male prostate gland (the organ of Weber) brings about the formation of a uterus masculinus, and so produces a sort of abnormal hermaphroditism. The rudimentary organs in the male reproductive apparatus frequently are the starting-points of hydatid cysts. In the female, cysts such as those of the parovaria are produced by the proliferation of rudimentary structures. These, although usually benign, not infrequently become malignant. Lawson Tait,[85] a celebrated English surgeon, has published a case of this kind. He removed from a young woman a parovarian cyst that was apparently benign, but in six weeks symptoms of cancer arose, and the patient died of cancer in three months.
A comparison of the rudimentary organs in the human reproductive apparatus with those in the similar structures of lower animals, shows that many relics have degenerated further in man than in other animals. Thus the duct of the embryonic kidney (known as the Wolffian body) is of rare occurrence in adult man, although it is retained throughout life in the case of some herbivorous animals, in which it is known as Gaertner’s duct. There are, however, many rudimentary organs in the human reproductive apparatus, organs that are always useless and not infrequently more or less harmful to health and life.
Alongside organs which have been useless from time immemorial, the reproductive system of man possesses structures of recent acquisition. These deserve special attention, as it might have been supposed that in them would have been found special instances of adaptation to the reproductive function.
I have already referred (chap. iii.) to the discussions that have taken place over the simian origin of man. All attempts to demonstrate the presence in the human brain of parts that were absent in the simian brain have failed. It is a curious fact that man displays a more marked difference from monkeys in the structure of the reproductive system than in the structure of the brain. There is no os penis in man. This bone, which facilitates intromission, occurs in many vertebrates, not only among rodents and carnivora, which are widely separated from man, but in many monkeys, and most notably in anthropoid apes.[86] For some reason impossible to establish, man has lost this bone. It may be that certain ossifications of most rare occurrence[87] may represent an atavistic inheritance from our remote ancestors.
In the male sex the difference between man and the anthropoid ape is the loss of an organ; in the female sex it is the acquisition of an organ. The hymen, the physical indication of virginity, is peculiar to the human race. That organ would serve the purpose of those disputants who make every effort to discover the existence of a structure peculiarly human, far better than the posterior lobe of the brain, or the hippocampus minor. Bischoff[88] has determined its absence in the anthropoid apes, and his result has been confirmed by other observers. Deniker[89] failed to find it either in the fœtal gorilla or in the young gorilla. In the case of the fœtus of the gibbon, he found a slight elevation round the entrance to the vagina “which might be homologised with the hymen,”[90] but which, however, was not the membrane in question. Deniker[91] himself decided that the “membrane was absent in anthropoid apes at all ages.” Weidersheim, in his summary of the organisation of the human body,[92] also sets down the fact that “in monkeys a hymen is not present.”
The fact that this structure appears late in the development of the female fœtus bears out the supposition that it has been acquired recently by the race. According to several observers, who agree in this matter, the membrane does not develop until at least the nineteenth week of fœtal life.
Although organs very ancient in origin, and now become degenerate rudiments, may be useless, it is to be expected that an organ of recent appearance and still in a progressive condition, would have an important function. Of what utility is this membrane to a woman? Wiedersheim[93] remarks that its function has not been made out.
The hymen sometimes plays a large part in family and social relations, and, regarded as the evidence for virginity, has had moral significance bestowed on it. A minute examination of this structure is frequently a part of the judicial procedure in cases of supposed rape and so forth. The destruction of the hymen has led to the death of many hundreds of men and women.
From our point of view, however, it is the possible physiological function of this structure that is interesting. It seems impossible to conclude otherwise than that in existing races it has practically no functional value. Its atrophy as the result of sexual congress not only is no bar to sexual relations, but removes an unpleasant impediment. In many races the structure is removed as soon as possible. In some parts of China it is destroyed as part of the toilet of young children, and indeed many Chinese physicians are ignorant of its existence. A similar state of affairs occurs in some parts of India. In Brazil, among the tribe of Machacuras, virgins, in the European sense, do not exist, for the mothers destroy the hymen in female children soon after birth. In Kamchatka the aborigines regard it as disgraceful to be married with the hymen intact, and the mothers operate on their daughters.[94] Among other races, again, the disagreeable duty of defloration is assigned to special persons. Among the natives of the Philippines there formerly existed well-paid public officials the duty of whom was to destroy the virginity of the girls and so to make marriage pleasanter for the husbands. A similar custom occurs among the inhabitants of New Caledonia, and Moncelon states that there virginity is held in little esteem. “I have proof of the curious circumstance,” he wrote, “that when a husband shrinks from destroying the virginity of his wife, he employs some one from a regular profession to take his place.”
Such examples, selected from amongst many, may be taken as proof that even such a peculiar and recently acquired organ has not a physiological use.
On the other hand, especially among Christians and Mahomedans, the existence of the hymen in an intact condition is regarded as very important. The ancient Jews began to set a high value on virginity. According to the old Mosaic law, if, at the time of her marriage, a young girl were found to be no longer a virgin, “Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die; because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father’s house” (Deut. xxii. 21). The religions that have sprung from Judaism have retained this old view of virginity, although in an attenuated form. Among some Christian peoples, material proofs of virginity at the time of marriage are demanded, and among some Mahomedans such proofs are exhibited to friends and relations on the day after marriage. However, the actual defloration is not always left to the husband, but among Arabs and Copts and amongst the natives of Egypt, the operation is performed by a specially selected matron.[95]
It is plain, then, that this membrane is of no direct service in the sexual process. It may even give rise to more or less serious misfortune. Thus, when it is unusually rigid, the adjacent peritoneum may be torn and the results may be disastrous. Occasionally the rupture of an abnormally vascular membrane may give rise to bleeding of a prolonged and even fatal character.[96] Moreover the membrane is a frequent seat of ulcers, specific or otherwise.[97]
I have already mentioned that among some races a rigorous toilet involves the destruction of the hymen. It is plain that the existence of the membrane interferes with strict hygiene of the vagina, especially at the periods. Probably some blood is retained by the membrane and furnishes a soil for microbes that may be dangerous to health. It is quite possible that certain forms of anæmia, as for instance the chloranæmia of virgins, may be produced by microbial growth. This would easily explain why marriage is the readiest cure for such anæmia, as marriage involves destruction of the membrane, and so makes possible the complete discharge of fluid from the vagina.[98]
What then can be the meaning of this organ, useless as it is for the sexual functions, sometimes dangerous to health, an organ that is no ancestral heritage and that must be destroyed by the act of sexual union? Formerly, when it was accepted that characters acquired in individual life could be transmitted to offspring, the question was asked as to why this membrane had not disappeared. The instance was one of those which helped to overthrow the dogma of the inheritance of acquired characters.
Although it is useless to existing man, this organ may yet come to be explained by science. As yet we have to fall back on suppositions. The hypothesis which seems most probable is that in the earlier period of the existence of the human race, sexual relations were begun at a very early age, before the male organs were mature. Under such circumstances the hymen would not only not have been a barrier, but would have made congress more satisfactory. Gradually the hymen would have become dilated without being torn, until it was capable of admitting the adult organ. This hypothesis implies that in early times the membrane was not brutally torn, but that it was gradually dilated and that violent rupture is a modern necessity. In support of the hypothesis it may be mentioned that amongst certain living races sexual union begins at a very early age. In Ceylon, marriage takes place when the boys are from seven to ten years old and when the girls are from four to six years, according to Roer, or about eight years according to Beierlein. After the actual wedding ceremony the bride returns to the house of her parents, and it is only a few years later, when she is adult, that she goes to her husband. Roer states that he has seen cases where a father and son were attending school together.
Among the Vedas, a low caste of tropical India, boys marry at the age of from fifteen to sixteen years, certainly before the sexual organs have attained their full dimensions. The missionary Etern was struck with the agitation of the natives of Keradif (in Abyssinia) when they were ordered within fourteen days to marry all their boys more than fourteen years old to girls more than nine.[99] In Madagascar, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, it was the custom for boys to marry at an age of from ten to twelve years. The natives of German New Guinea marry their boys at the age of fourteen to fifteen. Even in England a law still exists permitting marriage to boys fourteen years old. The law is now a dead letter, but is evidence of the ancient practice.
It is known that even at the present time the hymen is not always ruptured in sexual congress. Budin has recorded its existence in seventeen per cent. of primiparous women. Among seventy-five cases of women in their first confinements he found the hymen intact in thirteen cases. Since provision for children has fallen on fathers these have taken to deferring marriage to a later age than when children were left to the mother. That is the probable reason why there are now fewer married boys. Thus, formerly, the proportion of women who at the first childbirth still possessed unruptured hymens, was much greater, and it is not difficult to suppose that in still earlier times such a condition was normal. It is plain that there is here an instance of a very recently acquired disharmony.
The homology between certain portions of the male and female reproductive apparatus is well known. The male homologue of the female hymen is a little fold that hinders the mingling of urine with the seminal fluid during emission, and that is known to anatomists as the caput gallinaginis or colliculus seminalis. It is very much smaller than the hymen, so that we cannot regard the latter as a rudimentary homologue of a useful organ. However, the prepuce of the male is a clear instance of the presence in the male organs of useless parts. It is removed by circumcision among very many races, such as the Hebrews and Arabs, and other Mahomedans, and amongst Persians, negroes, Hindus, Tartars, and its absence seems to bring about no inconvenience.
Notwithstanding their imperfections, the human organs of reproduction are able to fulfil their functions. A close scrutiny, however, shows that there are many sides on which they are disharmonious or badly adapted.
The occurrence of bleeding is usually a sign of disease. Bleeding from the nose or of the lungs or intestines or kidneys is an indication of disease more or less serious. Discharge of blood from the female reproductive organs may also be an indication of disease, as for instance when due to tumours of the uterus. The only exception to the rule is the periodic flow in the case of women, by which they lose hundreds of grammes of blood (100 to 600 gr.). There is something paradoxical in such a physiological occurrence, and it deserves minute consideration.
These periodic losses, unlike the possession of a hymen, are not a peculiarity of the human female. “Heat” in lower animals is analogous, although in that case the chief indications are swellings of the mucous membrane with a slight discharge of fluid, hardly tinged with blood. The state indicates the awakening of the sexual instinct and readiness for coition.[100] Among monkeys there has been observed a flow much more closely resembling that of woman. In the case of macaques and cercopitheci, it has been observed even that the flow is monthly. Heape,[101] while in British India, took advantage of a valuable opportunity for making observations on this subject.
Among two hundred and thirty females of Macacus rhesus of which the greater number were adult or nearly so, seventeen displayed signs of menstruation, consisting of a swelling of the genitalia accompanied by the discharge of a pale and viscid fluid. Usually the flow assumed a pale rose tint, due to the presence in it of blood corpuscles, but cases where it was highly coloured were rare.
Although they are distinctly analogous to the menstrual flows of women, these occurrences in monkeys are distinguished by the predominance of the swelling of the genitalia, the viscid character of the discharge, and the relative absence of blood. They present a condition intermediate between the “heat” of lower animals and the human phenomena.
In anthropoid apes a similar menstruation has been observed. Bolau, Ehlers, and Hermes, record it in the case of the chimpanzee. “At this period,” wrote Hartmann,[102] “swelling and reddening of the genitalia occurred. The labiæ majores, which are usually inconspicuous, enlarged greatly, and a similar increase took place in the labiæ minores and the clitoris.”
In the case of women swelling of the genitalia is very slightly marked, and the chief occurrence is the flow of blood. It is plain, then, that something new has been acquired in the menstruation of women.
The condition of the flow at the present time is probably the result of modifications acquired recently in the history of the race. Among primitive peoples sexual union occurred at a very early age, and pregnancy occurred before menstruation. The latter did not appear during pregnancy nor in the time of suckling, and probably the latter was hardly over before a new pregnancy had occurred. In that way there was no opportunity for the onset of menstruation.
The human capacity for procreation throughout the year made the race extremely prolific. Probably this prolificness is the reason why man has spread over the surface of the earth, and has multiplied so enormously, in spite of the barriers to his progress and the high rate of mortality to which he is subjected.
Instances are known from recent observation of pregnancies occurring before the onset of menstruation. According to Rhode, among the Guatos, Indians inhabiting the mouth of the Rio Sâo Lourenzo in Paraguay, married women not more than five to eight years of age are to be met with, and these must have married before menstruation. Among the Vedas of tropical India, girls marry before they are nine years of age, and have relations with their husbands before sexual maturity. In Chiras in Persia, girls marry before puberty, and while their chests are still flat. In Syria, according to Robson, girls marry at the age of ten, and so before puberty. Du Chaillu related that the Achira of West Africa did not defer marriage until after the appearance of puberty. Abbadie, while on his voyage in Nubia, found that men bought young girls and had sexual relations with them before the time of menstruation. Among the Atjeh of Sumatra, girls marry at an age certainly before that of puberty, as they have hardly lost their first set of teeth. Although the husbands are a few years older, they are still unfitted for sexual union. The couples sleep together, and attempt sexual union before they are fitted for it. Among the islanders of Viti, again, marriage takes place before puberty.
The ancient Hindoos married at a very early age. Bötlingk quotes from the Sanscrit poems in which hell was awarded to the fathers of girls who had not been married when puberty came on. In other verses it was written that not only the father but also the mother and the elder brother were to be carried down into hell if the daughter began to menstruate before she had been married; the girl herself was to descend to the lowest degree of Çûdrâ, and was never to be taken as a wife.
There is no doubt as to the possible fertility of marriages contracted at these early ages. Polak[103] gives examples taken from Persia. It is not necessary for impregnation that it should have been preceded by a menstrual flow. Facts making this clear have occurred not only in warm climates but in our own latitude. Rakhmanoff,[104] in Russia, attended in childbirth a woman not more than fourteen years of age, of poor constitution, and badly nourished, and with features still infantine. Menstruation had not yet taken place; the confinement was normal.
It is reasonable to suppose that in former times these early marriages of girls under the age of puberty were more common, if indeed they were not customary. In such circumstances menstruation would have been a rare phenomenon.
It must be remembered that the examples of menstruation observed in the case of monkeys were taken from creatures living in abnormal conditions, isolated in zoological gardens and passing their lives in captivity. It is highly probable that the periods as they exist to-day, with copious sanguineous discharge, are a recent acquisition of the human race.
As he emerged from the primitive condition man had to restrain his prolificness. The history of savages and of civilisations shows that progress and culture have been accompanied by a rise in the age for marriage. In this way the menstrual periods could develop without check, and attain the present condition. In these circumstances it is not wonderful that menstruation should appear so abnormal and even pathological. A copious discharge of blood, preceded and accompanied by pain and by nervous and mental distress as so frequently happens, has no apparent kinship with the processes of normal life.
It is now easy to see why among so many races there are special rules made for women during this period. Most of the races of the earth, says Ploss, regard menstruating women as impure. The occurrence is so widespread that it is unnecessary to adduce particular cases, but a few with some point of special interest may be noticed. Thus, among the Hindoos a high-caste woman is regarded as a pariah in the first day of the period, and as one of the murderers of Buddha on the second day. Among many races a woman in this condition is forbidden to come near men, or to touch a number of objects, as she is regarded as capable of setting up many diseases and of doing serious damage. The Germans of the eighteenth century believed that the hair of a menstruating woman buried in manure would engender snakes.
It is not surprising that the origin of menstruation has been attributed frequently to evil spirits. The Iranians held that it appeared first in Dchahi, the goddess of immorality.[105] Such opinions implied vaguely that there was something abnormal in the process. The history of the evolution of menstruation explains well the origin of such a notion.
Another bizarre and apparently abnormal feature of the reproductive processes receives explanation in the history of its evolution. The feature in question is the painfulness of childbirth. It is truly astonishing and singular to find a phenomenon essentially normal from the point of view of physiology accompanied by pain of so marked a character. No doubt other animals suffer during labour, but among the mammalia woman undergoes the severest pain.
Observations made on several Europeans who have been brought to bed at an abnormally early age have shown that, contrary to all expectation, parturition was easy and the sequelæ normal.[106] Moreover, Dr. Dionij has stated his opinion that of two cases of a first childbirth at the ages respectively of fifteen and of forty years, he would prefer the earlier age. The daughters of the colonists in the Antilles were accustomed to marry at very early ages. In 1667 Du Tertre related that a young woman of that region had informed him that the birth of her first child took place when she was twelve years and a half of age, and that the process lasted no more than a quarter of an hour and had been painless. The missionary Beierlein practised for long in Madras, where marriages were very early, and found that parturition was much more easy than in Europe.[107]
On the other hand, certain facts show that too young mothers are subject to a very heavy rate of mortality during childbirth, and soon after it. The most salient fact in this connection is furnished by Hassenstein, who has stated that the mortality of labour cases in Abyssinia is 30 per cent., and who has attributed this death-rate to the circumstance that marriage takes place before the body of the woman is sufficiently developed.[108] In British India the disadvantages of precocious marriage have been repeatedly urged; and in a petition relating to this subject, Dr. Mansell referred to the case of a woman of twelve years of age in whom parturition was interfered with by the undeveloped condition of the pelvis, so that the head of the child had to be destroyed.
Matthews Duncan, the well-known English obstetrician, paid much attention to the mortality of labour cases, with the object of deciding the best age for marriage. He came to the conclusion that women from twenty to twenty-four years of age were best fitted for labour, that is to say, showed the lowest rate of mortality during labour or as a result of labour. He also showed that such women were most fertile, and that the development of the pelvic bones was completed at that period of life. Women who were of a lower or higher age showed a greater mortality rate in connection with childbirth.
The facts of which I have just given a summary lead directly to a most striking instance of disharmony exhibited in the order of the development of the human reproductive apparatus. Puberty declares itself in a woman by the beginning of menstruation at a time when girls still possess infantile characters and when the bones of the pelvic basin are not yet fully developed. Obviously there is a disharmony between puberty and the general maturity of the body, that is to say, the nubile condition.
This disharmony becomes still more evident upon a closer examination of the phases of development of the different reproductive functions. In the human race, reproduction is brought about by the union of the sexes suggested by sympathy or mutual love. The sexual union makes it possible for the male elements or spermatozoa to reach the eggs and fertilise them by passing into them. It might have been expected that the different steps in the process would have been attuned so as to act in harmony. As a matter of fact there is no such relation. The different factors of the sexual function develop independently and unharmoniously.
Love and the sexual sense in the human race appear before the other factors in the process. Ramdohr,[109] in the eighteenth century, stated that little boys frequently exhibit amorousness towards women. They are capable of being strongly affected by jealousy and by desire of exclusive possession of the coveted woman. This fact is well known, and has been related of famous personages. Thus Dante, at the age of nine, fell in love with Beatrice; Canova was in love when he was little more than six years of age, and Lord Byron was in love with Mary Duff at the age of seven.[110]
Sexual excitability appears at an age when there is no question but that the sexual elements are undeveloped. In infants still in the cradle, observers have noticed movements and attitudes showing the presence of sexual excitability. Curschmann and Fürbringer,[111] both competent clinicians, have noticed these feelings in children under the age of five. Later on in life, the development of the sensibility is more common, and is practically universal among boys before the time at which the spermatozoa are ripe.
This disharmony is the cause of onanism, which is common everywhere among boys. Before ordinary sexual congress is possible for them, boys experience the characteristic pleasure of the sexual sensations, and by a kind of natural instinct learn self-gratification. Onanism is sometimes defined as a “gratification of the sexual desire by unnatural means.”[112] But it is man’s constitution itself that permits the development of the sensation precociously, before the development of sexual maturity. Letourneau is right when he says that such sexual aberrations are abnormal, but not unnatural, as they occur among animals.
In the case of young boys the habit is so common that, according to Christian,[113] “very few are able to say that they have avoided it completely.” The same writer asks the question: “If it be remembered that onanism among certain peoples, at certain times, has been recognised as an ordinary event, it is difficult to avoid asking if there be not a latent vice, hidden in the depths of human nature, and ready to be provoked into activity by very small causes?” The answer is sufficiently plain. The cause of onanism, this “vice” or “crime,” as Tissot and other authors have called it, undoubtedly is the result of a natural disharmony in the human constitution, of a premature development of sexual sensation. Among the most civilised races and the lowest savages the mode of satisfying the premature demand is equally common.
It is to be noticed that onanism is more common and earlier developed in the male sex. The development of sexual irritability in the female occurs very irregularly. In some races onanism is so much a custom among little girls that no attempt is made to conceal the practice. This occurs, for instance, among certain Hottentot tribes, and is referred to openly in talk and legends.[114] Similar instances occur elsewhere, but in most races the practice is thought wrong, and is concealed as much as possible.
Among girls,[115] onanism is less frequent than in the case of boys, a circumstance in relation with the fact that sexual sensation usually appears much later in the female sex. It is almost a general rule that girls who have arrived at sexual maturity have not acquired sexual irritability, while to many it comes only gradually after marriage. Sometimes it does not occur until after the first child has been born. On the other hand, love begins very early in young girls, although it long retains a platonic character and is not associated with sexual sensation until much later.
The maturity of the spermatozoa in the male comes long after the development of sexual irritability and of love. None the less, it comes before the organism of the male is actually ready. It happens, in consequence, especially among the highly civilised peoples, that marriage and regular unions are impossible at the right time. The youth has his education to finish, his profession to choose, and he must be ready to support children before he is able to marry. As civilisation advances, the age of marriage becomes later and later. In the case of Europeans, sexual maturity occurs in the male at the age of twelve to fourteen years, while the average age at the first marriage is shown in the following table:—
| Table of Age at First Marriage.[116] | ||
|---|---|---|
| Nationality. | Age in years of males. | Age in years of females. |
| English | 25.94 | 24.69 |
| French | 28.41 | 25.32 |
| Norwegians | 28.51 | 26.98 |
| Dutch | 29.15 | 27.78 |
| Belgians | 29.94 | 28.19 |
These figures show clearly what a gap there is between the coming of sexual maturity and the age at which marriage can be undertaken.
The decay of the reproductive functions shows a series of disharmonies similar to those that occur during development. Spermatozoa continue to be formed throughout the greater part of the life of a man, and may still be found even in very old men. Pawloff, for instance, discovered that they were present in abundance in the case of a man at the age of ninety-four, and this observation is not unique.[117] But the presence of ripe spermatozoa is not the only condition necessary for functional virility. In the case of old men it happens frequently that there is incapacity to make normal use of the spermatozoa that are produced. This brings about a series of discomforts in the sexual functions of advanced life which, however, do not prevent the retention of the specific sensation and desire until a very extreme old age. Doctors, in hospitals devoted to old men, have noticed to what an extent their patients are engrossed by sexuality. Even some of the ancient authors have noticed how the amorous sentiments of old men turn into a perverted attraction to youths.
Sexual irritability and amorousness not only appear before sexual maturity and general fitness of the organism for marriage, but they remain after the disappearance of these. It is remarkable to notice how profound is the difference between the disharmonies of the reproductive functions in man and the perfect condition of adaptation of the same functions in the higher plants. In the case of the higher plants, as I described in my second chapter, the arrangements are complicated on account of the necessary mediation of insect life. Notwithstanding this, the perfection of the adaptation is remarkable. At the exact time when the reproductive products are ripe, the petals open and the nectar is secreted, while, in addition, at this time many flowers discharge odours agreeable to insects. Attracted by the scents and colours, the insects visit the flowers in quest of pollen or nectar, and, becoming dusted with pollen, carry it to the stigmas of the next flowers they visit. As soon as fertilisation has taken place the petals fade, the scents are no longer produced, and the insects cease to visit the flowers to which they are no longer necessary.
It is not surprising that the disharmonies in the human reproductive apparatus are a frequent source of trouble. Little children, in whom sexual irritability has awakened prematurely, learn to satisfy it by means called “unnatural.” In many cases damage rapidly follows. “In the child,” wrote Dr. Christian, “there is no secretion of spermatozoa, and it is in the child that the results of onanism are most disastrous to the organism, and disastrous almost in inverse proportion to the age.[118] It is in early infancy that this aberration merits the evil reputation that it has acquired; it compromises health, intelligence, and even life. Quite young children wither, becoming pale, stupid, and fragile, when they have acquired this disastrous habit. The evil is almost entirely a consequence of the unripeness of the organism for sexuality.” Happily these evil occurrences are rare.
A publication by Tissot, a Swiss doctor, on the subject of onanism, made a sensation in the eighteenth century. The book was full of exaggeration, and it was very inexact, but it contained interesting confessions from persons who had contracted the habit. A woman wrote to Tissot in the following terms: “But for the restraint of religion, I should have put an end to my life, which is ruined by my own fault.” Not infrequently the vice leads to melancholia.
Other unfortunate results come from the ripening of the sexual products before the organism is ready for marriage, and before the character has been formed. As men cannot contract marriage before they are ready for it, irregular and frequently harmful sexual aberration may occur.
The survival of this specific irritability until too late a period of life is another source of disaster. Old men who can neither excite passion nor satisfy it, often become victims of their own amorousness and unassuaged passions. It has been shown that passion may survive after the complete atrophy of the functions of the organs. Similarly it is the case that women from whom the ovaries have been removed, may continue to retain sexual irritability completely.
Disharmony of sexuality may also occur between persons of different sexes. The fact that sexuality is usually more precocious in the male sex often produces a disharmony in the case of married persons. At the time when a woman is still in full possession of this specific irritability, the appetite in the man may be on the wane. From this disharmony there often follows conjugal infidelity or passion between persons of the same sex.