A great deal of capital has been made of the "blood relationship" between man and the anthropoid ape.
We quote Professor Sir Arthur Keith:- " A special solution is prepared for testing the blood of each animal We shall suppose that the solution prepared is for detecting human blood. When to this solution is added a fluid in which a strain of human blood has been dissolved, a cloudiness appears in the solution, and a precipitate appears in the test tube. No OTHER BLOOD EXCEPT HUMAN BLOOD WILL GIVE THE FULL PRECIPITATE.
If a solution of dog's blood is added, there is no result. Professor Nuttall, however, found that a precipitate could be obtained with the blood of anthropoids, NOT SO PLENTIFULLY AS IN THE CASE WITH HUMAN BLOOD, but yet enough to show that in ' blood relationship,' man and the anthropoids stand very near together " (The Human Body, p. 53).
Capitals in foregoing extracts are ours. We shall see whether Sir Arthur Keith's statements that man and the anthropoids stand " very close together " is correct. Seeing the test in the case of the anthropoid does not give a plentiful reaction, whereas in the case of human blood it gives a full precipitate, at the very least the claim to affinity should be more modest. " Very close together " goes too far, even from Sir A. Keith's showing.
Professor Nuttall in his book, " Blood Immunity and Relationship," devotes twelve pages to explain that different circumstances may in many cases render inconclusive the results of such experiments.
If the anthropoid were the only animal in which this " blood relationship " occurred it would certainly be an arresting fact, but when it is known that the blood serum of the sheep, goat and horse, inoculated into man, is followed by a similar result to that obtained from the blood serum of the anthropoid, it robs it of the significance Sir A. Keith would give to it.
Professor Elie Metchnikoff, a director of the famous Pasteur Institute, wrote:- " The blood of a dog is poisonous to other animals, whilst on the other hand, the blood and blood serum of the sheep, goat, and horse, have generally little effect on other animals or on man It is for this reason that these animals, and particularly the horse, are used in the preparation of the serums employed in medicine " (The Prolongation of Life, p. 147).
We could as logically say that we must be descended from the sheep, the goat and the horse, as from the anthropoid.
Professor Brumpt discovered that animals, inoculated with the blood of men, suffering from sleeping sickness, fell victims to the disease, EXCEPT a few apes and pigs. We might conclude from this that all animals are nearer in relationship to man than apes and pigs. What becomes of Sir A. Keith's " very close together "?
B. Colgrave, B.A., and A. Rendle Short, M.B., B.S., B.S.C., F.R.C.S., write:- " Great capital has recently been made out of the fact that the precipitin test shows no difference between the blood of an ape and of a man, which is held to prove that they are chemically identical. But newer tests (agglutinins) have since been made use of, and it is safe to say, no surgeon, in the light of our present day knowledge, would be so foolhardy as to transfuse any large quantity of an ape's blood into a man " (The Historic Faith in the Light of Today, pp. 14, 15).
There are four distinct types of blood—that of man, beast, bird, fish—each having an average of heat peculiar to itself. For instance, a bird's blood is ten degrees higher than human blood, wherever found, in the torrid zone or the Arctic regions. Further, it is said that the shape of the blood corpuscles differ, preventing the blood of one species from passing through the arteries of the heart of another species, thus rendering it impossible to successfully transfuse the blood of a bird into a beast, or the blood of a beast into a human body. Death in each case would ensue.
Here is another proof of the impossibility of evolution of impassable barriers erected in the wisdom of the Divine Creator—a " thus far and no further," which not all the attempts of man can overcome.