[Phylogenetic aspect of human pathology]

In human diseases, the appearing signs of organisms more or less remote from man phylogenetically are usually considered to be atavisms which do not reflect the thesis of similarities in the evolutionary process. Phylogenetic similarities in human pathology represent recapitulations, parallelisms, and convergences. Since recapitulation was dealt with one of the previously published articles, this paper analyses parallelisms and convergences in pathology. By the examples of uterus malformations, gene and chromosome mutations, tumors, and tuberculosis it is shown that parallel development of a pathological sign consists in repetition in man of a species sign of an animal, in the emergence of phenotypically and genotypically homologous hereditary diseases, and in similar manifestations of modification changes of cells and tissues of man and other mammals. Convergent similarities even under pathological conditions develop in unrelated organisms. The subdivision of similarities existing in diseases into recapitulations, parallelisms, and convergences requires that the data of comparative anatomy and physiology, embryology and paleontology be taken into consideration.