Evening star., 1936-11-03

The brain of the orang- utan, original
wild man of Borneo." may contain the
first rudiments of the cerebral structure
Of speech.
DR.. Cornelius J. Connolly, professor Of
physical anthropology at the Catholic
University of America, has just COM
pleted an intensive study OF the cortlcal
patterns of approximately so species OF
primateS from lemur to man represented
in the collection assembled by DR.. AleS
Hrdlicka at the Smithsonian Institution.
In the cortex of the big and groteSque
red ape of Borneo and Sumatra he finds
what appears to be an outstanding de-
velopment in the progress of the species.
Actual speech, SO far as is known, is
an exclusive accomplishment of human
beings. 1t requires not only the ability
to make finely differentiated sounds, but
also the ability to associate them in the
memory with objects, ideas and emotions.
A part of the cortex known as Broca'S
area is believed by most neurologists to
be the brain center of this associative
process. 1t is found in both right and
left frontal lobes of the brain, in regions
marked off from the rest of the cortex
by depreSsions known to anatomists as
the inferior frontal sulci."
DepreSsions which can be identified
with these sulci appear for the first time
in the entire primate series, DR.. Connolly
finds, in the cortex of the orang. There
is no evidence of such a separation in the
gibbons. 1t appears, even more notably,
In the gorilla and chimpanZee. None
of these higher apes has the gift Of
speech as the term is understood when
To hIlr hain0c or,d
will have. DR.. Connolly stresses that his
finding must not be interpreted to mean
that the anthropoids themselves are in
the process of evolving into speaking
animals.
In man appears another sulcuS, fur
ther subdividing the inferior frontal re-
gion and inclosing a v or shaped re-
gion which is part of Broca's area. This
is probably the one exclusively and con-
stantly human physical feature of the
brain. 1t is found in all human beings
from BIRTH Not the slightest indica-
ton of it ever is found in the cortices of
any of the anthropoids. Eminent
anatomists, however, have found evil
dence of it in the supposed manlike pre-
cursors of modern man-such as the
pithecanthropus erectus of Java and the
But it is a further differentiation of
the cortex which started, DR.. Connolly'S
findings show, at the stage of brain de-
velopment now represented by the orang.
The cortex of this creature and that of
the other apes contained the partially
differentiated cortical material which
goes to make up the human speech CEN
ter. The exclusive cerebral v, it may be,
is the area wherein take place the fine
associations between sounds and objects
and ideas which make word symbolism,
infinitely complex in even the most
primitive of humans, possible.
The orang and the two higher apes
apparently have stopped just on the
threshold of the crudest simplest i'm
aginable kind Of speech, in so far as the
surface pattern of the brain is concerned.
They have the cortical material prob
ably necessary for voluntary larynx and
tongue movements, but the issuing
sounds are not hooked up and sys-
tematized with memories.
The finding, DR.. Connolly emphasizes,
applies only to the superficial pattern of
assures which localize various regions Of
the cortex It leaves untouched the
cellular differentiation of the speech
area.
A second significant point uncovered
BY Dr.. Connolly concernFthe variability