MAN OR “MISSING LINK?”

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1289, 27 August 1914, Page 4

MAN OR “MISSING LINK?”

A REJECTED FINNISH IMMIGRANT. ■ Dr H. A. Kuox, assistant surgeon in the United States Public Health Service, believes that the “ missing link ” has been found at Ellis Island. In an interview with the “World” Dr Knox says that the missing link was a Finnish immigrant who was deported in June last on account of constitutional inferiority. His full name is withheld, but Dr Knox, calls him Johan. Kr Kuox, who examined him, was particularly impressed by his Finnish nationality. “ We hear many old legends from the Finns who come here about the closeness of some men to animals,” he said. “ There are marvellous stories of how they tame and commune with savage beasts, and I wondered it this remarkable person did not, at least in part, explain that legendary ability.” Johan was referred to the psychological laboratory at Ellis Island because of a trembling of the head and a constant side-to-side roving ot the eyeballs, known as nystagmus. He was of average height, but his prodigious strength, the set of his body, and the long arm forcibly suggested the ape. “Our first look at him,” said Dr Knox, “made us think of man’s supposed ancestor, where the tree b; and humanity grew upward, while the apes remained stationary or developed

along lower lines. His gait was roving, his eyes constantly searched the ground, his features were distorted with a strange grin of recognition rather than of understanding, his forehead was startlingly receding, his ears much lower than the normal man’s, and exactly as are ape’s ears. The top of his head was round as a bullet and coveted with coarse wiry hair. His under-jaw protruded much too far, and, instead of canine teeth, he had long fangs that made bis lips protrude. His eyebrows were shaggy, and the ridges were unusually prominent, which is another ape characteristic lacking in a man. His nose was of the spreading saddle type. During his examination he was docile, and, in a dumb way, goodnatured. He had four years’ schooling, and showed the mentality of a ten-year-old child. He was totally lacking in a sense of hamour. We tried to make him laugh in order to aid our study of his guttural, rumbling voice, but he would not laugh. When we examined his throat, we told him to say “An!” but the best he could do was a beast-like growl. The big toe of each foot was like a thumb, and could be used like one- A remarkable feature of the case was the hands, which were ape-like iu nearly every particular. Johan was a telegraph linesman, and it requires only a slight stretch of the imagination to picture this ape-man hanging by his arm from a telegraph pole, as his ancestors hung from trees, and travelled from branch to branch with their powerful hands and feet.” This strange man, who is thirtynine years of age, has only two joints in his little fingers, which he uses like thumbs. His middle fingers are shorter than the others, and crooked inward. His grip is abnormally powerful, representing sixty-seven units, whereas the average man’s grip is thirty-one. The American authorities are communicating with the Finnish authorities for the purpose of further investigating the immigrant as a living representative of tbe stone age.