Robert Wiedersheim

Robert Ernst Eduard Wiedersheim (April 21, 1848 in Nürtingen – July 12, 1923 in Schachen (Lindau)) was a German anatomist who is famous for publishing a list of 86 “vestigial organs” in his book The Structure of Man: An Index to His Past History.

Wiedersheim's father was Eduard Friedrich Wiedersheim (1819-1882), a medical doctor and naturalist. His mother, Bertha Friederike Wiedersheim (née Otto, 1825-1848) died a few days after his birth. During his school years Wiedersheim showed an interest in botany and zoology. However, he was not a good student and barely passed the final examination.

Initially commencing a science degree at Lausanne in 1868 Wiedersheim switched after one semester to a medical degree at Tübingen, following his father's wishes. He studied at Tübingen from 1868 to 1870 under Franz Leydig. In 1871 he moved his studies to Würzburg and the following year to Freiburg. In 1872 Wiedersheim finished a doctoral thesis on the finer structural relations of the glands in the gizzard of birds, a subject suggested to him by Carl Hasse while in Würzburg.

In 1873 Wiedersheim married Mathilde (Tilla) Sophie Gruber with whom he had one son, Walter Wiedersheim.

After finishing his studies Wiedersheim returned to Würzburg where he worked as an assistant to Albert von Koelliker until 1876. In 1876 he became an associate professor of anatomy at the Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg where he taught until 1918. He became an expert in comparative anatomy and published a number of relevant textbooks. He also collected early photographs and documents of scientists of his day. In 1883 Wiedersheim became a full professor of anatomy and succeeded Alexander Ecker as the director of Freiburg's Institute of Anatomy and Comparative Anatomy.

The anatomy of the frog

At Freiburg Wiedersheim took part in a lengthy ongoing collaboration with Alexander Ecker and Ernst Gaupp to produce a comprehensive, illustrated atlas of anatomy for the European edible frog Rana esculenta. This collaboration took place over a 40-year period with several publications between 1864 and 1904 under the title Die Anatomie des Frosches and the resulting work is still considered a standard reference on anuran anatomy. A translation by George Haslam of the first two volumes of Die Anatomie des Frosches, including considerable new material, was published under the title The anatomy of the frog in 1889.

Comparative anatomy of vertebrates

In 1882 Wiedersheim published a book entitled Lehrbuch der vergleichende anatomie der wirbeltiere or Elements of the comparative anatomy of vertebrates. This book and its subsequent edition proved very popular and a shorter outline version was published, this was also popular and went through several editions, gaining in size with each edition. In 1902 this outline version superseded the original and was published as Vergleichende anatomie der wirbeltiere or Comparative anatomy of vertebrates. English editions under both titles were translated by W.N. Parker an anatomist at University College of South Wales, now Cardiff University.

The Structure of Man

The structure of Man: An Index to His Past History deals with various anatomical elements of the human body and attempts to frame them in an evolutionary context with other vertebrates. Wiedersheim himself suggests in the introduction that this work is in the same vein as Thomas Huxley's earlier Evidence as to man's place in nature. The structure of Man began as a much shorter academic treatise, Der Bau der Menschen, produced in 1887 with a small intended circulation. In its original form it lacked any illustrations and gave only a brief overview of many of its topics. Thanks to a high degree of interest and correspondence regarding the work Wiedersheim decided to publish a revised and expanded version. The German second edition was published in 1893 with an English translation by Henry and Matilda Bernard following in 1895.

As part of the book Wiedersheim included a list of the organs discussed in the text which might be considered vestigial. He writes, "comparative morphology points not only to the essentially similar plan of organization of the bodies of all vertebrates, ... but also to the occurrence in them of certain organs, or parts of organs, now known as 'vestigial.' “By such organs are meant those which were formerly of greater physiological significance than at present.”

He picked up on Darwin’s concept of “rudimentary” organs such as listed in the The Descent of Man: the muscles of the ear, wisdom teeth, the appendix, the coccyx (tail bone), body hair, and the semilunar fold in the corner of the eye. The list, however, contains structures which today are known to be essential, and thus represents a historical record of the physiologic understanding of the day.

Evolutionists have used the credited examples of this list as an argument for evolution as they are evolutionary leftovers, of little use to the current organism. Creationists, on the other hand, have used the discredited examples as an argument against evolution. There is no "scientific" proof, they say, of the uselessness of a particular organ.

It is important to note that a vestige is not necessarily a completely useless organ. Although defined as "useless" in popular media, a vestige as defined in evolutionary biology may still have some use, but the use has since diminished. This definition is consistent with Wiedersheim, who said that vestigial organs are "wholly or in part functionless" (Wiedersheim 1893, p. 200) and have "lost their original physiological significance" (p. 205).

Although Wiedersheim's originally published list contains 86 items, later interpretations enlarged his list to 180 vestiges. The zoologist Horatio Newman said in a written statement read into evidence in the Scopes Trial that "There are, according to Wiedersheim, no less than 180 vestigial structures in the human body, sufficient to make of a man a veritable walking museum of antiquities."