CHAPTER V DISHARMONIES IN THE ORGANISATION AND ACTIVITIES OF THE REPRODUCTIVE APPARATUS. DISHARMONIES IN THE FAMILY AND SOCIAL INSTINCTS I Remarks on the disharmonies in the human organs of sense and perception.-—Rudimentary parts of the reproductive apparatus.-Origin and function of the hymen 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 consciousnees 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 startingpoints 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,* 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 The case is quoted in Pozzi's "Traité de Gynécologie," p. 714, 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. * For some reason impossible to establish, man has lost this bone. It may be that certain ossifications of most rare occurrence † 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 has determined its absence in the anthropoid apes, and his result has been * Crisp," Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London," p. 48, 1865. † Lenhossek, in Virchow's "Archiv. für pathologische Anatomie," vol. XL., p. 1. "Abhandlungen der mathem.-physikal. Classe d. K. Bayerisch. Akad. d. Wissensch. München," vol. XIII., Part II., p. 268, 1880. F confirmed by other observers. Deniker * failed to find it either in the foetal gorilla or in the young gorilla. In the case of the foetus of the gibbon, he found a slight elevation round the entrance to the vagina "which might be homologised with the hymen," † but which, however, was not the membrane in question. Deniker himself decided that the "membrane was absent in anthropoid apes at all ages." Weidersheim, in his summary of the organisation of the human body,§ 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 || 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 physio *Loc. cit. p. 245. † Loc. cit. p. 250. |