"Q. I am grown pretty fat, and in a fair way To add to my plenty, more every day :

So therefore to you for advice I do seek,
As thinking than doctors you're something
more cheap :

I moderate exercise constantly use,

As fencing, and dancing, I invoke to my muse :

I read various authors, though difficult too:

I

pen set to paper, yet this will not do:

Some advise me to marry, as a very good

way;

Some tell me I must at tennis go play;

And a thousand odd things still added to these,

Yet nothing without your wise counsel will
please ;

For I mightily trust to Apollo's sound mind,
As expecting from thence my remediam to

find.

A. Since the courses prescribed have not altered your fate,

And no moderate methods will lessen your fat,
Go try a camp-life, let the ground be your bed,
Nor let sleep for a fortnight once settle your

head :

For a month or a quarter be tyed to a dearth, And deny all relief from the fruits of the earth;

Or repair out of hand to the gallies of France, Which emaciates much more than a push or a dance :

But if all these shall fail, and your labour's but waste,

You must hang yourself up for a Bacchus at last."

With one more quotation of a similar nature, we shall conclude our Medical Gleanings.

"Q. I little eat, and yet I'm fat and great,

My stomach suited to my small estate;

I little have, and yet a merry fellow,
Nay, when I'm sober, too, as well as mellow,
Say how so much arises from so little,

Or else, I say, Apollo's but a wittal?

A. You're merry 'cause your stomach is so small,
And your expense on't next to none at all;
You're fat because mirth makes digestion good,
Extracting all the virtue of your food;
And if one little were but added more,

A little brains, you'd known all this before."

CHAPTER VII.

THE OCCURRENCE OF SUPERNUMERARY RIBS IN MAN.

"Whether a Man has more Ribs on one side than the other."

-British Apollo.

ACCORDING to the belief formerly current, every bone, muscle, organ, or tissue present in an animal was there to serve some essential and definite purpose, and could not be dispensed with. Exception to this generalisation had to be acknowledged, but it was expected that with increased knowledge a satisfactory explanation would be ultimately forthcoming. Meantime, some of the more striking and abnormal anatomical aberrations were conveniently named lusus naturæ, and afforded an interesting subject for gossip to the old-fashioned natural history chronicler, who described these "freaks of nature" for the special delectation of an individual who was usually not inappropriately styled "the curious reader." To the serious scien

tific investigator, however, they possessed comparatively little interest and less value until the advent of evolution, when an entirely different complexion was given to the phenomena.

Leaving pathological features out of account, we may refer to the presence in man of such redundancies as the vermiform appendix, the third eyelid, the pineal gland and others which are always present; and supernumerary ribs and vertebræ, cervical auricles (ears in the neck), etc., that only occasionally put in an appearance. To these structures the name of lusus naturæ is no longer given; so far from showing Nature in a weak moment perpetrating errors, the phenomena is now believed to exhibit the extraordinary persistence that prevails in the transmission of structures at one time of great importance, although not now of any use. These organs or structures are now known as vestigial relicts. During the course of many generations, while the body was becoming adapted to changed conditions, certain parts were subjected to reduction or degeneration, and now are only to be seen as vestiges of a former useful and essential existence. From this point of view the subject presents material for investigation of fascinating interest. Its import

ance also cannot be exaggerated, for in tracing the vestiges carefully we are enabled to unravel to some extent man's genealogy during the remote geological past, and to determine to which of his fellow animals he is more closely related.

There are numerous vestigial structures still surviving in man, but it will be sufficient to confine ourselves to one that has not received so much attention either popular or professional as some others, namely, the occurrence of supernumerary ribs in man.

The human skeleton has normally twelve ribs on each side attached to the corresponding dorsal vertebræ. The first seven on either side are true ribs springing from the vertebræ, and attached in front to the sternum or breast bone. The other five are all false ribs, the first three coalescing together and with the seventh rib before becoming attached to the sternum. The two lower false ribs are also termed floating ribs and are not attached to the sternum in front. In size, the ribs increase in length from the first to the eighth and then diminish. The number of ribs in mammals varies from nine to twenty-four pairs.

That there is a tendency towards a gradual diminution in the number of ribs in man might be