Orthopaedic gorillas no more
BMJ 2007; 335 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.39430.559375.47 (Published 20 December 2007) Cite this as: BMJ 2007;335:0All rapid responses
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Dear Sir
As a consultant orthopaedic surgeon, I read your article "Orthopaedic
gorillas no more" slowly but with interest.
As a point of information I can reveal that the question of gorillas in
orthopaedics was studied at the Royal College of Surgeons in 2004.
Specifically addressed was the question of whether the apes could be
trained to do orthopaedics. It was felt that the intellectual capacity
would probably be adequate, the male gorilla enjoying a cranial capacity
of over 500ml (Schultz AH, The life of primates, Weidenfeld and Nicolson,
1969) . This contrasted with that of the male chimpanzee, averaging just
under 400ml, and since the latter could be expected to produce the works
of Shakespeare given a typewriter (as explained by Huxley), mastery of a
corpus of knowledge sufficient, say, to write an Oxford Textbook was
considered within the capability of the gorilla. The main problem for the
gorilla would be using tools, such as powered drills and saws, the hand
being poorly adapted for this. This has been know for some time. Sir
Charles Bell described the similar situation in the case of the chimpanzee
"paw": "the remarkable peculiarity is the smallness of the thumb; it
extends no further than to the root of the fingers. On the length,
strength, free lateral motion, and perfect mobility of the thumb, depends
teh power of the human hand" (Bell C, The hand, William Pickering 1833).
Bell also noted the lack of a powerful forearm flexor to the thumb, flexor
pollicis longus, in primates; a meta-ananlysis on the arrangement of
forearm digital flexors in apes has been published (Straus WL, 1942). The
differences in hand anatomy would be such that the apes would have
difficulty even using tools designed to suit the ape hand.
The College group considering the matter, probably as part of a government
initiative (reasoning along the lines of "Surely a monkey could be trained
to be a doctor"), to introduce competition and consider alternatives to
traditional service provision noted that while the anatomy of the hand
would preclude performance of surgical operations, there may be other
spheres in which non-human primates could contribute. Perhaps those
specialities in which mental activity predominates in day to day practice?
Reports of chimpanzees forming what appeared to be "war parties" and of
apes throwing unpleasant material at those around them also led to some
speculation that, while chimpanzees and gorillas were apes rather than
monkeys, possibly either may be suited to political roles, although
consideration of this was outside the terms of reference for those
gathered.
In short, it has been known for a short while now that gorillas would be
unsuited to orthopaedics, and I welcome the implicit recognition of this
in your article.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
Orthopaedic Gorillas, Comparative Perspective in Hominoids
Gentlemen,
I am very interested in your question of gorillas in Orthopaedics.As
you know, some part of the brain have been more closely associated with
higher cognitive function than others.Creative thinking, planning of
future action, decision-making, artistic expresion working memory,
language and motor control are function atributed mostly to the frontal
lobes of the brain in hominoids.
Our present knowledge of the structure of the frontal lobe in the
gorilla´s brain, we can identify a complex fissural pattern(32% frontal
lobe in 550 cc., Stephan et al, 1981)).The anteriormost portion of the
right hemisphere was found to be wider and protude anteriorly.Gorillas
presented right preponderance. In short, the gorilla and bonobo patterns
are closer to the human pattern with more than half of the specimens
studied, presenting a right frontal advantage in cognitive functions and
emotional behavior.
References: Taylor,S. et al:The mentalities of gorillas and
orangutans,Comparative Perspective.Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-
58027-7
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests