The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1904-04-23
THE ANATOMY OF MAN.

, yoe on the beauty OF your upper eye
or inquired after your gills? For
, though you may not know it, yor
number these among the disused feat
ures OF your body.
lp the center of your brain, look
ing vaguely skyward, lie the atrophi-
cd lemains of third eye, which, is
supposed, was actually one of man
useful features at some previous state
OF development. 1t is known as the
plnsal gland, though covered by skin,
and is formed in an almost perfect
condition in certain lizards.
You have four gills, or bronchial
clefts, which, however, are now closed
up and useless. You originally had
six but two of them, by forming into
4 your ear and mouth, respectively.
turned themselves to some account.
However, before your lungs develop
ed and became fitted to carry on your
breathing system, the work was done
by the four gills which have since
childhood ceased to develop and be-
come closed up.
| Your ears-that is, the outer ones
ARE quite useless save as ornaments.
You could hear just as we'll without
them. All the work of hearing is
done by the middle ear, or tympan-
um, and the internal ear. The outer
feature is purely pleasant sort of
finishing touch to your hearing sys-
TEN. The muscles of the outer ear
are powerless aud not under our con-
troll.
Are you aware that you have
miniature grand piano in your audi
tory nerve, which is tuned up to every
note in music? This is known as
Corti's organ and consists of series
of tiny hairs which vibrate on the
drum of your ear and enable you to
distinguish the differences of sounds.
AS sometimes when you strike
note on the piano some ornament in
the room will be found to sing with
it, so each of these hairs inside your
ear vibrates in sympathy with the
musical sound corresponding with it.
An appendix is generally useful
thing when applied to books, but
mans appendix is not only useless.
but very troublesome. This is the
remains of an intestine supposed to
have formed part of our ancestors.
Though many other parts of the body
are practically useless, they are sup
posed to have been useful at some
time, but scientists cannot trace that
the vermiform appendix was ever of
any service to man.
Toe nails are entirely useless, and
toes are quite superhuous. A man
could get along as we'll without toes.
In fact, a doctor removed eight of a
mans toes without any inconvenience
being suffered, and the loser got along
quite as well without them.
auseless4 Now Il: that T.. ,seaIEly eaE az az on5 III
not have to bite through hard sub
stances teeth are gradually decaying.
The fact that the teeth of our an
cestors 400 or 500 years ago were in
fnitely bigger than our own, shows
that nature is gradually taking away
these organs.
Tonsils, too, are almost useless and
fulfill no serviceable object to the
body. People can get along quite
we'll without them, and very large
proportion of the population have
| had them removed.
Both the hair and the skin have
ended their days of usefulness to the
human race. The hair was intended
to cover our heads from the heat of
the sun. We cover up the hair, and
by shutting it off from the exposure
which nature intended it to have we
are gradually but surely losing this
adornment, and it is estimated that
in time we shall cease to grow it.
AS to the skin, it was given US to
protect our bodies from the elements.
Bo covering it up with clothing and
preventing it getting proper resplra
tion we deprive ourselves of its use.
It is not inconceiveable that the man
of very remote future period may
be not only hairless and toothless,
but skinless as well.
The most extraordinary thing to
be noted about all this is that those
parts OF the body which are useless
give US the most trouble, while those
in constant activity remain quiescent.
The teeth, through lack of work, get
lazy, as it were, and decay.
The tonsils, having nothing to do,
make your life misery to you
through continually swelling until
they are removed. The skin, which
is useless to civilized man, has large
variety of diseases to vent on us,
largely due to its compressed condi-
tion.
The vermiform appendix, which is
absolutely useless, has a nice little
disease of its own, which it develops
with often fatal results, known as ap'
pendicitis.
A man can live without his frontal
bone. At recent accident work
man was struck by crowbar. The
only possibility of saving his life was
by excising the frontal bone. The re
suit was that the man survived, with
. out serious injury, though he was
conscious of some mental defect.
1t is quite possible that an artist
writer or musician would find the eft
feet of the removal to deprive him o
f the particular faculty for producing
his work, but otherwise his brall
! would be unaffected for its ordinar.
] functions.
4 ACCORDING TO the old Greek idea
of nerfect woman her height Whe