Physiology : a popular account of the functions of the human body / by Andrew Wilson.

  • Wilson, Andrew, 1852-1912
Date:
[1910?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Physiology : a popular account of the functions of the human body / by Andrew Wilson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    16/146 (page 2)
    most part must be directed to ascertaining first, man's place in nature; second, the particular build of the frame he owns. Man's Place in Nature.—Man stands at the head of the animal kingdom, and as such becomes in turn the chief figure in the class of animals popularly known as “ quadrupeds and scientifically as “ mammalia. In turn, this class forms one of the five divisions of the type of animals known as Vertebrates, or “ back-boned forms. In all of these animals the presence of a back bone or spine forms a distinctive feature, for even in the very lowest, represented by certain fishes, if a bony spine itself is not developed, we find in such animals a struc- ture representative of the back bone itself. -Man’s superiority over all other members of his class, and therefore over all Vertebrates, is represented by features which really represent elaborations or evolutions of the structures found in his lower neighbours. For example, the bodies of all the back-boned animals are built on one and the same type. If we make a section, in the long direction of the body—of a fish, for example—we find that the skull and spine protecting the main centres of the nervous system—brain and spinal cord—occupy the back or dorsal region of the body. In the middle we find the digestive system, which is essentially a tube; whilst situated lowest we find the heart. Between the digestive system and the back bone there exists a second nervous system known as the sympathetic system, a structure typically repre- sented by a double chain of nerve-knots or centres with connecting nerves. Now this plan runs entire and unbroken through the whole Vertebrate series of animals, from fish to man.