SOME ATAVISTIC TENDENCIES.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20490, 8 March 1932, Page 4

SOME ATAVISTIC TENDENCIES.

ears that betray DEGENERACY. eyes of the horse. (i-rom otm own cobiusspondekj.'.; LONDON, January 28. I Dr. Leonard Williams, in a paper on "Man's Atavistic Tendencies," which he read before the Insuranco Institute of London, made some interesting I suggestions regarding the origin of certain physical abnormalities in man. If man had remained quadruped, ne said he would not have been able to 1 develop his central nervous system, which was the seat of such god-like qualities as he might justly claim to possess. Man began life as a quadruped, and that was how lie intended to close it. Nothing was so characteristic of ! premature ageing as a progressive stiffening in the neck and the small of the back. The man of 50 who moved his head and shoulders in one piece was on the down grade, both physically and mentally. They would see him on the steps of the Athenajum and the military clubs in Pall Mall, and lie abounded in so-called learned societies, especially when they were medical or clerical—less often when they were legal. A peculiar forward rigidity of the head and neck (called a "poke") was, in his young days, regarded as a mark of special sanctity. Dr. Pusey, one of the principal leaders of tho Oxford movement, had this "poke" by nature and his younger disciples adopted it as an outward and visible sign of their inward and spiritual grace. It probably shortened their lives as definitely as it narrowed their outlook and clouded their understanding. Whatever external methods they might wish to adopt to impress people at a glapce with their virtue, their learning, or their wit, ho (Dr. Williams) advised them on no account to do anything which could possibly interfere with the free mobility of the head or neck, and thus imperil the drainage upon which so much depended. At the moment tho commonest way of impairing' that drainage was by a tight collar. Dr Williams gave as example of definite reversions or atavisms tho widely separate eyes which some peopla inherited from an equine or bovine ancestor. "Tho liorso can sec behind him and sees everything on the flat," said Dr. Williams. "People who inherit his type of eyo usually inherit his typo of intelligence as, well, both their physical and mental outlook being definitely deficient. . A person' with ft bovine eyo or an equine tends to resemble tho respective arymals, not only in character and intelligence, but also in digestive capacity, so that tho person, witli widely scparato eyes ought to be vegetarian in practice." Abnormalities in Hars. Ears without lobes and cars with points near the upper part of their margin were definite signs of degeneration. The pointed tip represented that found in many of the lower animals, and it might be taken to reveal various vicious tendencies, most of them with a sinister sexual significance. Ears which were very large or very small, ears which stood out at right angles from tho head, or were plastered against the cranium; ears which were devoid of nooks and crannies, looking as if they had been ironed out, and ears which were situated either too. high or too low, in relation to tho eye, all told of atavisms or reversions or arrested developments representing certain degrees of degeneracy. Dr.' Williams said ho was using the term degenerate in a purely physical sense to denoto a stato of matters which fell, unduly short of the optimum in the physiological make-up of the individuals, so that a person decorated with such stigmata might be regarded as more liable to succumb to disease and more likely to wear out his organs by legitimate use than his more normally equipped brother. __ Dr Williams said that so much vital energy was necessary to make a negroj black that he had not much left to j develop his central nervous system. ! That accounted for the child-like character of tho dark races. "Red hair," ho went on, "is a distinct and unquestionable atavism in all races. The highest authorities assert that primitive man was red-haired. But 'ginger' is not a fool. He is not as other men are, but he is more often their superior than their inferior." Obesity was suggested by Dr Williams as perhaps the most decided example of a degenerative atavism. The fat man imitated the hibernating habits of his animal, ancestors by accumulating vast stores of internal provisions, in subconscious preparation for the winter's fast—which never arrived.« The fat man was sleepy because his subconsciousness was trying to make him hibernate. Dr. Williams also placed left-handedness among the degonerativo atavisms. . j Beferring to the tendency to effeminacy in men since tho war, Dr Williams said that it was attributed to a' revulsion from everything which was male and therefore combative. "The war was so horrible," he said, "that - a mass hatred of everything which could be associated with it grew in the subconscious mind of everyone; and expressed itself, in the rising generations of young men, in characteristics which we associate with effeminacy."