To R. A. Vance 4 December 1877
Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.
Dec 4 1877
Dear Sir,
I am obliged for your long & valuable letter.1 I am too ignorant of anatomy to form any decided opinion on the subject; but if I had met with your statements I should have been inclined to attribute the spiral folds to reversion & the valves to the partial abortion of the fold. I should have formed this opinion from the analogous structure in fishes of the most generalised kind, & to the great variability of the parts in question.2 Could you not procure an oppossum & examine the lower intestine; for if it presents no trace of the structure in question I should hesitate if I were in your place to allude to reversion.3 If marsupials do exhibit any vestige I would examine one of the lower placental mammals a rabbit for instance & afterwards a monkey. If you could satisfactorily prove the nature of these remnants it would be a conclusion of much interest4
As I have already referred to my ignorance of anatomy you will of course not refer to the remark which I have hazarded—
Dear Sir | Yours faithfully | Ch. Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Baur, Hermann. 1863. Ueber die Falten des Mastdarms. Beiträge zur Anatomie und Physiologie 3: 1–38.
Summary
Thanks RAV for valuable letter [11232]. CD too ignorant of anatomy to form a decided opinion, but is inclined to attribute spiral folds to reversion and the valves to partial abortion of the fold. Asks RAV to verify by examining lower intestine of an opossum for the structure. If missing he would hesitate to allude to reversion. If RAV can prove the nature of these remnants it would be a conclusion of much interest.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-11269
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Reuben Aleshire Vance
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- Cleveland Health Sciences Library
- Physical description
- LS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 11269,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-11269.xml