Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Our erect attitude : an essay / by John Wilson, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.
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![Reprinted from the “ Glasgow Medical Journal ” for January, 1SSS ] OUR ERECT ATTITUDE: AN ESSAY. By JOHN WILSON, M. D. (Read before the Medico-Chirurgical Society, 18th November, 1S87.) ( With Coloured Plate.) Mr. President and Members,—I claim little originality in this paper. The whole theme and many of its details have been suggested to me by an article in Belgravia which I read three years ago, “ The Upright Man,” by Richard A. Proctor (Belgravia, vol. liv, p. 152). Man glories in his erect attitude. Milton thus pictures Adam and Eve when first seen by the Fiend— “ Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall; Godlike erect, with native honour clad ; In naked majesty, seemed lords of all.” The attitude is indeed noble, but is it quite in harmony with ■our present structure ? Are our bodies as yet, not more adapted to the prone horizontal attitude of the quadruped ? J am convinced that in some important respects they are so, and that a large proportion of our manifold discomforts, disorders, congestions, and displacements are traceable to this same erect attitude of which we boast. Do not suppose that I am going to advocate future pi’ogression on all-fours; but rather that the pervading attraction of gravitation, as it affects certain incomplete portions of our structure, must not be ignored in our interpretation of human disorders, and our remedial measures. It is not in an irreverent spirit either, that I would unfold our incompleteness, but I rather view it as suggestive and prophetic of an upward progress towards, though probably never attaining, perfection. As well might I be blamed for deeming the mollusc less complete than the mammal. My very admiration of the wonderfully](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24917953_0005.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
