Evening star., 1932-03-22
TEARS ARE TRACED
TO SALT WATER OF
MARINE EXISTENCE
Theory of Origin Advanced
Before AnthropoIogists
at Museum.
|EYE NEVER INDEPENDENT
OF SEA, SPEAKER SAYS
Declares Body Had to Make Its
Own Sea Water After Humans
Lived on Land.

Human tears and the human eye can
be traced back to the primeval ocean
out of which life arose.
Such was the contention of DR.. Lau-
renee D. Redway of OSsining, N. Y,
before the American Association of
Physical Anthropologists meeting at the
National Museum today.
The eve. he contended, never has
reached complete independence Of the
sea- Consequently the body has been
forced to manufacture its own supply
of sea water, in the form Of tears, aeons
after it has become adjusted to a dry
land environment.
In his description of the evolution of
the eye, Dr. Redway maintained it is
one of the most primitive structures In
the body. coming down almost un-
changed from vertebrate ancestors
whose whole bodies were transparent.
Have Single Function.
1.-THE transparent tissues of the eye
he said, differ in structure from other
tissues Of the body and nowhere else Is
the condition of transparency found
This characteristic of the tissues Is
not the result of high degree of diff
ferentiation from an evolutionary point
of view but, on the contrary, the reten-
tion of exceedingly primitive structural
forms about which all the other It's
sues of the body have evolved through
the course of time.
These tissues have but a single func-
tion-the transmission Of light. This
singleness of functional objective and
its constancy through the history of the
world has succeeded in maintaining an
almost static form in the structures In
volved."
The general structure of the present
human cornea, DR.. Redway said. is es-
sentially that of the outer layer of the
curious fish, amphioxus, which is found
in British waters and which many
biologists regard as an ancestral form
of the fish race and consequently of all
the vertebrates, including man. Am
phioxus has an almost transparent
body
In the course of many generations
DR.. Redway insisted, this transparent
surface was contracted to a small area
especially designed to receive light
stimuli, such as appear in all the
vertebrates. This was the eye. The
further one goes down the evolutionary
line, he said, the greater the area OF
transparency.
Most Precious Possession.
There seems to be no alternative, he
said, to placing such a wonderfully
complicated structure as the eye at the
bottom instead Of the top of the evo-
lutionary line without taking the i'm
possible position that the will to see
preceded the simplest forms Of life.
There is no record, he says, of inter-
mediate stages in the evolution of the
eye from the lowest vertebrates to the
highest, although such stages can be
found in nearly every other structure
of the vertebrate body.
Sight, or the ability to respond to
light, he explained, was such a val
liable function that the body, once hav-
ing attained 1t, could not afford to 'ex-
pertinent with it. Instead 1t guarded it
tenaciously as its most precious pos
session. Thus can be explained what
otherwise might seem to indicate q
sudden, perfect creation of the animal
eye mechanism.
The greatest change came, he pointed
out, when animal life emerged from the
sea- The eye had been developed to
function in a saltwater environment
and could not make easily the transit
ton to air as its sole external contact
The tear glands had to be created to
meet this difficulty. They are able to
furnish the eye with copious supply
of modified salt sea water" whenever
this becomes necessary.
A notable physiological change"
takes place in the bodies of U. s. Army
officers in the early thirties, Drs. Al
bert G.. Love and L. j. Reed reported
as the result Of statistical study of the
annual physical examination records of
the commissioned personnel of the
Army between 1901 and 1916. Presum-
ably the same change would be found
in the male population in general, it
was said, but the Army officers fur
nished ideal material for the study,
since the body changes were not cor
related, at least to any great extent, by
pathological changes. Otherwise they
would have been retired.
The physiological change" DR.. Love
said, seems to come before the patho-
logical changes generally associated
with middle age. 1t consists In meas
urable increase in weight and chest
measurements. 1t does not indicate any
necessary variation from perfect health.
A little later, DR.. Love reported,
when the measurements are taken as a
whole, increase in pulse rate and
systolic blood pressure appears. This
he designated as a pathological
change" the records being effected by
individuals who are ON the road to the
cardio- vascular complications OF later
life.
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