The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1894-03-10
MANKIND'S THIRD EYE.
1t Il Near The Center of the Head and
Is in Innocuous Desuetude.

IL Is NeHT tle NtnNPT Ol l1e BeHu ana
Is in Innocuous Desuetude.
"There is kind of lizard found in Vir-
ginia and Maryland that has three eyes
one Of them on the top of his head,n said
man of science the other day to q representa-
tive Of The Star. 1T is generally supposed
that they are very rare, but, on the con-
trary, they are quite common. You can
find plenty of them if you take the trouble
TO look. They are green and about three
inches long,
'Are there any other animals in the world
that have three eyes,"
Lots. For example, you yourself have
third eye, though it has become rudi-
mentary through disuse"
Where is it?'
Just in the middle of your head, as
nearly as its location can be described off
hand Anatomists know it as the 'pineal
gland, but it is actually an eye that has
become rudimentary. Place the tip of your
finger just above the bridge of your nose
and on the level with your eyes Directly
behind that point about five inches, at the
base of the brain, is this gland | speak Of
which the ancents used to imagine was the
center of consciousness and the seat of the
soul. Its structure has lost all resemblance
| to that of an eye but you can find it re
tanning more of its original development
| in some turtles and other reptiles. With
them this gland has still, though in the
middle of the head, an actual eye socket,
an optic nerve connecting with the visual
! tract of the brain. and even the pigmentary
inner coat, the object Of which in all eyes
is to absorb light. There is no retiua, but
it is an eye for all that. In the case Of the
lizard mentioned this pineal eye actually
appears at the top of the head and is useful
for seeing with.
"There are quite number of rudiment-
ary organs in the human body which have
become so because nature has no longer
any use for them. For example,, there is
the thyroid gland in the neck, the only
usefulness of which seems TO be in occn
sioning the disease known as goitre. Peo
pie in Savoy and the Tyrol are worst af-
fliCted with this complaint. 1t is supposed
that the water they drink, derived from
the melting Of the glaciers of the Alps
causes the hypertrophy of the thyroid
gland, the result of which is an enormous
swelling, so that sometimes the unfortu-
nate comes to have u baglike appcndage
dangling down as far "a the waist. There
is no known cure for the trouble after it
has got well started, though the swelling
may be trifc reduced by injections into
its substance. 1t is very curious fact
that IL human being or any other animal
is deprived of this apparently useless gland
by cutting it out, there always follows n
general degeneration Of all the tissues Of
the body
Another seemingly useless organ is the
'supra-renM capsule attached to each of
the kidneys, Its only purpose in a human
being appears to be to occasion what is
known us 'Addison's disease, in cases
where it gets out of order. In such cases,
which are happily rare, the skin of the
body loses its natural color and becomes of
muddy brown hue. This capsule is
presumably the remains Of what was once
n secrotory organ.
Then there is the mysterious 'vermi.
form appendix attached to the small in
tostino. Once in while an apple seed or
some such thing gets into it, and causes
inflammation. Until within the last four
or five years such cases were always fatal
but now they are usually cured by cutting
open the stomach and removing the mp.
pendix. Until very recently operations re.
quiring the cutting open Of the body in
J this way invariably resulted in death, for
the reason that germs could not be pre-
vented from getting into the wound and
creating subsequent inflammation. But
the bacteriologists have taught, through
their researches how such germs may be
killed by spraying with antiseptic solu
tions. The vermiform appendix has con
siderable usefulness amoug the lower ami