The Evolution of Man, vol 2 | Page 8

2.217 B) opens into the body-cavity; their outer aperture into the atrium (C). The prorenal canals lie in the middle of the line of the head, outwards from the uppermost section of the gill-arches, and have important relations to the branchial vessels (H). For this reason, and in their whole arrangement, the primitive kidneys of the Amphioxus show clearly that they are equivalent to the prorenal canals of the Craniotes (Figure 2.218 B). The prorenal duct of the latter (Figure 2.218 C) corresponds to the branchial cavity or atrium of the former (Figure 2.217 C).
(FIGURE 2.217. Transverse section through the middle of the Amphioxus. (From Boveri.) On the left a gill-rod has been struck, and on the right a gill-cleft; consequently on the left we see the whole of a prorenal canal (x), on the right only the section of its fore-leg. A genital chamber (ventral section of the gonocoel), x pronephridium, B its coelom-aperture, C atrium, D body-cavity, E visceral cavity, F subintestinal vein, G aorta (the left branch connected by a branchial vessel with the subintestinal vein), H renal vessel.
FIGURE 2.218. Transverse section of a primitive fish embryo (Selachii-embryo, from Boveri.). To the left pronephridia (B), the right primitive kidneys (A). The dotted lines on the right indicate the later opening of the primitive kidney canals (A) into the prorenal duct (C). D body-cavity, E visceral cavity, F subintestinal vein, G aorta, H renal vessel.)
If we sum up the results of our anatomic study of the Amphioxus, and compare them with the familiar organisation of man, we shall find an immense distance between the two. As a fact, the highest summit of the vertebrate organisation which man represents is in every respect so far above the lowest stage, at which the lancelet remains, that one would at first scarcely believe it possible to class both animals in the same division of the animal kingdom. Nevertheless, this classification is indisputably just. Man is only a more advanced stage of the vertebral type that we find unmistakably in the Amphioxus in its characteristic features. We need only recall the picture of the ideal Primitive Vertebrate given in a former chapter, and compare it with the lower stages of human embryonic development, to convince ourselves of our close relationship to the lancelet. (Cf.
Chapter 1.
11.)
It is true that the Amphioxus is far below all other living vertebrates. It is true that it has no separate head, no developed brain or skull, the characteristic feature of the other vertebrates. It is (probably as a result of degeneration) without the auscultory organ and the centralised heart that all the others have; and it has no fully-formed kidneys. Every single organ in it is simpler and less advanced than in any of the others. Yet the characteristic connection and arrangement of all the organs is just the same as in the other vertebrates. All these, moreover, pass, during their embryonic development, through a stage in which their whole organisation is no higher than that of the Amphioxus, but is substantially identical with it.
(FIGURE 2.219. Transverse section of the head of the Amphioxus (at the limit of the first and second third of the body). (From Boveri) a aorta (here double), b atrium, c chorda, co umlaut coeloma (body-cavity), e endostyl (hypobranchial groove), g gonads (ovaries), kb gill-arches, kd branchial gut, l liver-tube (on the right, one-sided), m muscles, n renal canals, r spinal cord, sn spinal nerves, sp gill-clefts.)
In order to see this quite clearly, it is particularly useful to compare the Amphioxus with the youthful forms of those vertebrates that are classified next to it. This is the class of the Cyclostoma. There are to-day only a few species of this once extensive class, and these may be distributed in two groups. One group comprises the hag-fishes or Myxinoides. The other group are the Petromyzontes, or lampreys, which are a familiar delicacy in their marine form. These Cyclostoma are usually classified with the fishes. But they are far below the true fishes, and form a very interesting connecting-group between them and the lancelet. One can see how closely they approach the latter by comparing a young lamprey with the Amphioxus. The chorda is of the same simple character in both; also the medullary tube, that lies above the chorda, and the alimentary canal below it. However, in the lamprey the spinal cord swells in front into a simple pear-shaped cerebral vesicle, and at each side of it there are a very simple eye and a rudimentary auditory vesicle. The nose is a single pit, as in the Amphioxus. The two sections of the gut are also just the same and very rudimentary in the lamprey. On the other hand, we see a great advance in the structure of the heart, which is found underneath