Intermembral homologies : the correspondence of the anterior and posterior limbs of vertebrates / by Burt G. Wilder.

  • Wilder, Burt G. (Burt Green), 1841-1925.
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Intermembral homologies : the correspondence of the anterior and posterior limbs of vertebrates / by Burt G. Wilder. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    tunately employed those of man in the erect attitude, and was, moreover so impressed with the prevailing belief that pollex and pri- mus must correspond, that he failed to discover the existence of the idea of symmetry in the distal portions of the membra. A few years later, Budd, 79, and Paget, 80, observed some patho- logical evidences of a relation between symmetry and disease, to which I have made some additions in 50. A more successful attempt to ascertain how far the membra are truly symmetrical structures, not in a telical sense, as Plumphrey re- garded them, but upon the basis of the ideas suggested by Oken and Gerdy, was made by Professor Wyman in 1860, 35. In a verbal communication which it was my good fortune to hear, this eminent anatomist clearly and impartially stated the views of previous authors, and pointed out the objections thereto ; no report is given of this remarkable communication, but as I recollect it, being then a student, and hearing of the subject for the first time, Professor Wyman ex- pressed himself substantially as follows : — “In order to compare the upper and lower limbs of man, the skele- ton should be placed in a horizontal attitude ; the limbs then hang downward ; in their natural attitude, with most mammalia, the elbow looks backward and the knee forward; the shafts of the humerus and femur are inclined in opposite directions ; if now the hand be siipinated, and the fingers pointed backward, there results a complete symmetrical homology between all parts, until we come to the thumb and great toe ; for the former is now upon the outer bor- der of its limb, and thus opposed to the little toe ; this difficulty is a •very serious one, and there seems to be no satisfactory method of removing it.” This view of the limbs was afterward freely discussed by Professor Wyman in his laboratory, and was made the basis of later and de- cided expressions of opinion by Folsom, 40, and myself, 45, who were not then able to perceive the full force of the objections which our preceptor had indicated to bis own view. Three years later, but apparently unaware that Prof. Wyman had treated the subject. Dr. Foltz published his very valuable papers, 39 111 which the general subject of symmetry is ably discussed and shown to exist between the membra, even to the digits and dactyls- but, c.xcepting the supination of the inanus so as to face the palm forward as the sole faces backward, Foltz retains the quadrupedal attitude of the membra, and further encumbers his theory with the