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fessor of medicine on the aura of medical wisdom thatemanated from his even more numerous retinue. Butlack of medical thought among the former and dearth ofsurgical acumen in the latter would lead him to believethat the human frame was heir to no more than onedisease at a time, and that diseases conveniently groupedthemselves into current specialties. Only when disabusedwould he begin to wonder how many medical emer-gencies would have to be operated on unnecessarily andfor how long surgical cases would have to languish ondrugs and diets before one of the surgical registrars couldbe spared for the medical firm, a medical registrar forthe surgical firm, and a clinical pathologist for both.

Giants with Cold Feet

EVEN in the twentieth century there are many thinlypopulated and almost unexplored regions in the world,and in several of these there have arisen rumours of theexistence of large animals still awaiting scientific dis-covery and classification. The publicity accorded tothe " abominable snowman " of the Himalayas is nodoubt a tribute to the aura of mystery and endeavour

surrounding the highest mountain on earth. It may alsobe due in part to the beguiling name bestowed upon thecreature, almost certainly as a result of a losing battlewith the local dialect. As ASHER 1 has put it: " Thereis something about a name, particularly an eponymousterm, which brings into being things which never seemedto be there before. "

What little is known about the " snowman " hasbeen documented by HEUVELMANS.2 Sightings by thelocal population appear to have been fairly frequent,but few foreigners have been so fortunate ; the oddsagainst a direct encounter are naturally high in an areawhere search parties stand out distinctly against thesnow. Various portions of snowmen are said to be

preserved in the local monasteries, and a supposed scalphas been subjected to investigation without any veryconclusive results. Witnesses usually describe theanimal as an erect or semi-erect biped rather smallerthan a man, and many tracks discovered in the snow bycompetent observers tend to confirm this estimate ofsize. But one of the best photographs of a footprintfrom such a track-that taken by SHIPTON in 1951-is a massive affair approximately 121/2 in. long, 71/2 in.broad at the forefoot, and 61/2 in. broad at the heel.The great toe is thick and stumpy, and seems to takemuch of the weight; the second is the longest toe, andis separate from the hallux and third toe; the lateralthree toes are small and partly fused. If the footprintsof SHIPTON’S animal are in proportion to its generalbuild we are dealing with something much larger thana small man and more comparable to a giant. Possiblythere are two species, or, more simply, a considerabledifference in size between the sexes.At first those unwilling to entertain the suggestion

of an unknown animal put forward the view that the

prints were made by a langur-a long-tailed monkey1. Asher, R. Lancet, 1959, ii, 359.2. Heuvelmans, B. On the Track of Unknown Animals. London, 1959.

standing about 4 ft. 6 in. to 5 ft. high and known toexist in the area. The fact that the langur’s foot is ofwholly different construction and size from the foot

postulated from SmpTON’s prints was countered bysuggesting that the snow round each print had meltedand then refrozen. There is no supporting evidencefor such an idea, which takes no account of the sharpnessof the outline, the length of the stride, the absence ofany marks from the tail, and several other factors. Moreplausible was the suggestion that the prints were thoseof a bear; but all the information from the many tracksso far discovered seems to point to a bipedal mode ofprogression, and these " bears " would have had towalk on their hind legs for many miles to produceanything resembling the recorded evidence. In anycase, the local inhabitants have no hesitation in differ-

entiating between the tracks of snowmen and of bears.If we do not accept the bear or the langur, what have

we left? HEUVELMANS suggests that we have a verylarge plantigrade bipedal primate, possibly of similartype to the fossil Gigantopithecus, whose teeth werediscovered in China in 1934. He has in fact gone sofar as to give it the provisional name of Dinanthropoidesnivalis. Recently TscHERNEZKY,3 using SHIPTON’S

original photograph, has made a model of the snow-man’s foot and compared it -with those of a gorilla, alangur, and a bear. His conclusions are identical withthose of HEUVELMANS, except that he thinks that thehallux is opposable. TSCHERNEZKY suggests that thehallux has a much shortened metatarsal element,4 thephalanges being large. Such a toe, he believes, wouldbe capable of grasping, but less effective for walkingupright, so that the second toe has become elongatedand thickened in compensation. He considers that theprint indicates that the animal walks in a manner similarto man. A medially disposed functional axis of the foot 5would accord with the suggestion that the animal isan anthropoid. If such a creature exists, its home maybe below the snowline, its excursions up the mountainsides being dictated by a need for salt, which is con-tained in lichens growing on the rocks. Droppingsdiscovered in relation to the tracks indicate an omni-vorous diet, including vegetation which is not presentat high altitudes. It has also been suggested that thecreature may not be habitually bipedal, but adopts thisgait to make as little contact as possible with the coldsnow. Nevertheless, this animal is sufficiently adepton two feet to travel for long distances over difficultterrain without apparently putting its forelimbs to theground.

In the absence of fuller evidence it is clearly unsafe tospeculate on the detailed structure and appearance ofthe snowman, but the arguments set out by HEUVELMANSand TscHERNEZKY must be taken seriously. Now thatthe Himalayas are more frequented by mountaineersthan formerly, information is likely to accumulate morerapidly, and this most popular of mysteries may becomea mystery no more.3. Tschernezky, W. Nature, Lond. 1960, 186, 496.4. Wood Jones, F. Structure and Function as Seen in the Foot. London,

1949.5. Le Gros Clark, W. E. The Antecedents of Man. Edinburgh, 1959.