Waterbury evening Democrat., 1890-01-04
OUR COUSIN, THE FROG.
So He Ought to Be Regaaded, De-
 clares 8 Learned Professor.

ing Between the Batrac achian and tho
 Human Being-How MT. Frog
 Disposes of His Old Clothes.
 "The most interesting thing about frog," says the professor of anatomy to Washington Star man, ''is its ex- traordinary structural resemblance to the human being. If you had an oppor- tunity of comparing the two by dissec- tion you would not be astonished at the notion which many physiologists have expressed that man and the batrachian were actually cousins, derived from the same original ancestry. Incidentally you would observe that MT. Frog is very high up in the scale of development that runs from the bivalvular oyster to the genus homo. You would find that the arrangement and formation of his bones and muscles are pretty much the same as in man.
 ''There is one physical characteristic, however, which alone entities the frog to an elevated status in creation; he has a thumb. For is 1t not to the possession of 8 thumb that man owes his elevation above the brute? With no more thumb than 8 monkey he would never have been able to make any thing-or, in other words, to construct any product representing an idea-and he would have remained, to all intents and pur- poses, beast. Apropos of the subject we are talking about, take it that no reasonable person devoid of prejudices can look upon the mere skeletons of 0 man and 0 chimpanzee, side by side, without having forced upon him the conviction that such a likeness of struct- ure could only be accounted for by unity of derivation"
 (Which, then, do you claim that your greatest grandfather was, a monkey or frog?'' "Young man, that is foolish ques- tion, implying strange ignorance. MT. Darwin did not teach, as is vulgarly sup posed, that the human kind Is dcscend- ed from the ape; his theory, which js still held by nearly all scientific m'en, 1 was that apo and man came frorl tho | same primary ancestral source. How l else, pray, are you going to account for | tho similarity in almost eve,ry detail of | their make-up?'
 'And the frog?"
 ''The frog I recognize as a cousin, too. T6laG1VO-0SD6- oially broiled. It is not because we have an amphib1ous great,st grandfather in common, however, that I respect him most, but for the re ason that he has con- l tributed so largely to scientific research. In fact the ikeD ess he bears to tho hu- man species has been great misfortune | to him. On account of it the experi- menter in physiology is continually try l vhaf hn I0 his brain, or his legs, or his insides. Tho demonstrator of anatomy outs him up to show the beautiful structure of his mus cles, or the circulation of his blood, while tho expert in toxicology tries the effects of all sorts of poisons upon him, and when he has finally succumbed and 1 given up the ghost the electrician ap- plies the ga}vanic battery to his stiffen- ing limbs to mako him do a corpse dance. | You remember, dare Say, that Galvani owed his wonderful discovery to frog whose skinned hind legs, prepared for soup, lay beS1de an electrical machine at which the inventor was working. By accident he touched the legs with the end of wire along which a powerful current was passing, and they immedi- ately became frantically convulsed. Hence the development of galvanism." 1 "Can frog get along at all, then. without his brain?"
 1 Exceedingly well. saw frog the other day that seemed to be in most ex- cellent physical condition, though it's cerebral To bes had been in alcohol for six months. It had frst-rate appetite, swallowing minnows tha were given it with the utmost readiness, and, al- though it rarely moved for the obvious reason that it was not in condition to think about moving preliminarily, 1t could not very we'll have any mental enxieties and appeared likely to preserve l sort of automatic existence for an i'm definite period"
 'tThe frog is cold-blooded animal, is he not?"
 "Yes, but on the other hand he is ex- ceedingly affectionate, and his heart is agitated by such strong emotions that 1t continues to beat for seven or eight min utes after 1t has been detached from his body"
 ''Is the frog very intelligent2' | "It is dificult:to say; if you watch him you can never tell what he is looking at, though he always appears to be en- gagged in the deepest thought. My opin- ion is, however, that his thoughts are chiefly confined to dress. He is very extravagant about his clothes; every ! week or two in summer he has 8 now suit-kicks of his old garments like the clown in the pantomime-anda appears in a fresh costume, with green coat and white waistcoat, spick and span.
 ''Then, for economy's sake, he pro- ceeds to eat up his rejected habiliments. There are no secondhand clothing deal CTS among the batrachians. MT. Frogs skin is covered with waterproof var n1sh, which exudes from the pores, and the spots on his back serve to mark tho flight of time, increasing in number with the years of his existence. He has a great many enemies besides man, which is fortunate, since otherwise he