From James Murphy 10 May 1876
The Infirmary | Sunderland
Dear Sir
Having just read yr. “Descent of Man” with so much pleasure I trust you will excuse the liberty I take in mentioning two points which may have escaped yr. notice.
The first is under the head of “Rudiments”.1
Marshall has described (“On the development of Man & Mammalia” Philosoph. Trans. 1850) “a vestgial fold of the pericardium which is a vestige of a left superior vena cava that exists in early embryonic life” and also in the Elephant the Edentata & the Rodents.2
The second point may seem far-fetched but it is this.
The Uterus in woman points downwards & backwards. Now when man went on all fours and the penis was without a frænum—as most of the Mammalia) copulation took place vis-a-dos but when man became erect and copulation took place vis-a-vis it was necessary to have a fraenum to direct the meatus of the penis backwards, towards the mouth of the womb.3
Respectfully submitting those points to yr. notice & trusting you will excuse the liberty I have taken in doing so | I am | Faithfully yours | James Murphy
10.5.76.
Footnotes
Bibliography
Descent 2d ed.: The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. By Charles Darwin. 2d edition. London: John Murray. 1874.
Marshall, John. 1849. On the development of the great anterior veins in man and mammalia; including an account of certain remnants of foetal structure found in the adult, a comparative view of these great veins in the different mammalia, and an analysis of their occasional peculiarities in the human subject. [Read 21 June 1849.] Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 140 (1850): 133–70.
Summary
A reader of Descent offers two items: 1. Masters observed a pericardial fold in humans and other mammals which is a vestigial left superior vena cava;
2. JM suggests the frenum of the human penis became necessary for vis-à-vis copulation when man became bipedal.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-10503
- From
- James Murphy
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- The Infirmary, Sunderland
- Source of text
- DAR 171: 323
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 10503,” accessed on 10 September 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-10503.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 24
