Man‘s Organs of Speech

Abstract

THE Huxley Memorial Lecture for 1947, under the auspices of the Royal Anthropological Institute, was delivered by Dr. W. L. H. Duckworth, reader emeritus in human anatomy in the University of Cambridge. The subject was "Some Complexities of Human Structure"*. The approach was frankly anatomical and was a meticulous and masterful analysis of the facts, anatomical and racial, relating to the organs of speech in man. Duckworth wasted no time on the classical definitions of anthropology; he ignored the subdivisions of the subject and refused to be drawn into the finer distinctions of zoological anthropology, physical anthropology, social and cultural anthropology and ethnology. He kept clear of the pathological and avoided the theories of aphasia from Broca and Bastian to Henry Head. Here was the approach to the anatomical aspect as emphasized by Galen in his "Methodus Medendi" : "The magnitude of a disease is in proportion to its deviation from the healthy state ; and the extent of the deviation can be ascertained by him only who is perfectly acquainted with the healthy state". Hence the justification for the intensive study of normal structure and function in man as distinct from booksellers' notes about positive health and social medicine.