PROVISION FOR THE STUDY OF THE PRIMATES, AND ESPECIALLY THE MONKEYS AND
ANTHROPOID APES[1]
[Footnote 1: Much of the material of this section was published
originally in _Science_ (Yerkes, 1916).]
I should neglect an important duty as well as waste an opportunity if in
this report I did not call attention to the status of our knowledge
concerning the monkeys and apes and present the urgent need of adequate
provision for the comparative study of all of the primates.
Although for centuries students of nature have been keenly interested in
the various primates, the information which has been accumulated is
fragmentary and wholly inadequate for generally recognized scientific
and practical needs. There is a voluminous literature on many aspects of
the organization and lives of the monkeys and apes, but when one
searches in it for reasonably connected and complete descriptions of the
organisms from any biological angle, one, is certain to meet
disappointment.
Concerning their external characteristics we know much; and our
classifications, if not satisfactory to all, are at least eminently
useful. But when one turns to the morphological sciences of anatomy,
histology, embryology, and pathology, one discovers great gaps, where
knowledge might reasonably be expected. Even gross anatomy has much to
gain from the careful, systematic examination of these organisms. With
still greater force this statement applies to the studies of finer
structural relations. Little is known concerning the embryological
development and life history of certain of the primates, and almost
nothing concerning their pathological anatomy.
Clearly less satisfactory than our knowledge of structure is the status
of information concerning those functional processes which are the
special concern of physiology and pathology. Certain important
experimental studies have been made on the nervous system, but rarely
indeed have physiologists dealt systematically with the functions of
other systems of organs. There are almost no satisfactory physiological
descriptions of the monkeys, anthropoid apes, or lower primates.