The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-10-10
A STUDY IN EVOLUTION.
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE
GREAT TOE.
How It's Grasping Power Is DevcI-
Oped in some Races-ExamDIes of

now It's GroSp1nE rover is DeNet-
Oped in some Races-ExamDIes of
Its Use.
From the Overland Monthly.
The great toe is perhaps the most char
acteristic member in the human structure.
1t is the fulcrum on which is based the
system of levers whereby we walk. and,
very naturally. as man is the most highly
perfected of, the two-legged animals, this
fulcrum is in him the most perfect of its
kind. The manlil1e apes, such as the
chimpanzee, the gorilla and the orang-ou-
tang, in which all four of the extremities
bear their share of the weight in locomo-
ton and have prehensile or graspiug
powers, do not walk directly on the fiat
of the feet as we do; and. as a conse-
quence, their great toes retain much of
the thumblike nature belonging to that
organ in the lower monkeys. 1t is there
fore, taken by many, at a hasty glance,
as a prime difference between man and
the creature next to him that he is de-
void of prehension, the grasping power,
in his feet and has. to a marked degree,
the ability to walk on the fiat of his feet,
and make his great toe give that spring
| to his step which is necessary in easy and
! graceful walking. But this difference is
| much discredited as a mark of separation
| of man and the gorilla, by reason of the
great numbers of connecting links" If
in the higher apes the toe did not show
signs of beginning to take on the walking
attributes, and if in the man there were
not plainly discernible traces of muscu-
| lar and other structure indicative that
| once the human toe was a prehensile or
| gan, and if, further, there were not found
many savages and not a few semi civilized
| peoples with a certain amount of grasping
| power in the big toe, the problem would
be far more simple
AS a matter of fact, the marked differ
| ence between the thumb-toe on the hind
| foot of a spider monkey and the great toe
| of a human being whose ancestors have
! for years gone booted or shod, is fanciful,
not actual. For between them stand
| long line of higher monkeys and lower
| men in which the change from one to the
| other is clearly indicated. By this it Is
not to be understood that we are to jump
at the conclusion of mans derivation from
! monkeys; no scientific evolutionist has or
| does teach exactly this. We are simply
to understand that mans ancestors have
q
tours; while the higher monkeys are even
now acquiring the erect position.
When il daWned on primitive man or his
! ancestors back in those dim days that in
the erect position he had both hands free
to hurl missiles at an enemy, or to use
club upon him, and at the same time was
in a much better position to see and ward
off an attack, at that moment the eX-
IRENE grasping powers of the foot were
| doomed to slow extinction and its walking
qualities to as gradual development.
1t is a mistake to think, as some people
| do, that the present uselessnesS OF the
| great toe for anything but walking, as
| seen to the greatest degree in North Eu-
ropean races or their derivatives is solely
| due to the stiffening of it under the con-
| finement of the modern shoe. 1t is we'll
nigh as useless in the American Indian,
driven by stress of climate to a nomadic
life and much walking, as it is in the
white conqueror. His near cousins in
tropical America on the contrary, allow
ed by a genial climate to live life of in
dolence, have almost as strong grasping
power in the toe as has the African ne
gro or the aboriginal Australian. The
habit of walking erect, and that only, mas
| brought about the change.
| 1t is a universally accepted theory that
upon the embryo of an animal may be
| found written in unmistakable anatomic-
! al character if we but look with sufficient
| care, the record of the stages through
| which it's ancestors have come by the
| gradual changes of development. There
fore we are not surprised to be told that
| Prof Jeffries Wyman that in the very
| immature human embryo may be found
| stage where the great toe is shorter than
the others, as in the case of our thumb
| and where instead of being parallel to
the other toes, it projects at an angle
from the side of the foot thus correspond
| ing TO the permanent condition of this
| part in true monkeys
How permanent the effects of long ages
| of use are, and how easily those of centu-
ries of disuse are overcome, is well illus
| trated by those maformed individuals
| known to the anatomist as ectromeles-
| born without the upper limbs. These soon
| learn to use their feet as though they were
hands, easily utilizing them in eating,
| drinking. playing musical nstrumentsand
even, as in a recently famous case, In
skilful modelling in clay. Examination
| shows that in such cases, while the thumb
like position of the toe cannot be acqur-
| ed by reason of the in1eXible structure
| of the bones of the foot, muscular powers
long dormant or atrophied are soon called
into play, and a gripping power and a
nicely of touch are acquired that are al
| most marvellous
Many savage or semi-savage tribes have
retained the graspng power in the great
| toe to a considerable degree, and the uses
they make of it are novel and Interesting
Visitors to the worlds fair at Chicago had
| opportunity to study this in the Dahom-
evans of the Midway Plaisance, though
they are now much modified by four or
! five years of life in Paris. These saw
ages had a habit Of placing fowl near
the foot, grasping the neck firmly be-
tween the great and the second toes, and
while thus holding it. reaching down and
killing it by pulling its head off with their
fingers. One of them could pick his teeth
with a toothpick held between the toes,
and another picked up a coin from the
ground quite as well with his feet as with
his hands The latter feat is not at all
uncommon among the negroes of our
southern states; while the same method Of
chicken killing was used by negro cook
that / had In the West Indies.
Sailing across the bay from Port Royal
to Kingston, Jamaica, my skipper proved
himself whole crew by steering with one
hand, holding one sail sheet with the other
and holding another by the rope passed
between his toes. The perfect ease with
which he could let the rope run through the
toes and suddenly check it by the pressure
of the great toe against its neighbor was