MAN QUADRUPED.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3327, 20 September 1911, Page 8

MAN QUADRUPED.

ERECT CARRIAGE OF HUMAN

BEINGS. Three of Germany’s most reputed scientists have been making experiments to prove thajt humanity makes a great mistake in’ walking upright, instead of on all fours, as nature intendd. Thereby, they declare, mail brings upon himself many physical evi's from which the mere sensible and less aspiring horse and dog are free. When man first stood on his hind legs and learned to walk as a biped, he disturbed the whole equilibrium and poise' of liis organism; and since then he has been trying in vain to adapt his architecture and 1 organs to his unnatural carriage. As he has failed in this attempt, he has brought upon himself weakness and disease.

One of the first to occupy himself with this thesis was Professor Ernst Haeckel, the Jena biologist and Darwinian), who broke a leg the other day in the museum there, as if to demonstrate the contention. The problem has now been brought much further by the experiments which Dr. Gerhart has lectured on at the Berlin University Polyclinical Institute. In order to see what was the effect upon man when he first took to uprigjht walk, Dr Gerhart placed quadrupeds in a similar position and observed them. He forced a large number of different animals to 6tand, walk, and as far as possible live on their hind legs. Gerhart’s experiments indicate that when, ages ago, man first walked upright, certain important changes took place ir His internal organs and muscles. The o-gans tended to fall and the •muscles, which- were originally intended for a quadrapedj tended to suit themselves for a biped. But as walking upright displaced the organs and put strain on certain muscles greater than Mias intended, the upright carriage brought with it certain penalties. What these were is shown by Dr. Ernest Klotz of Leipzig. Since man has been walking upright he has been trying to adapt his architecture and organs to his new walk. ,