An evolutionary insight into morphology can offer ways of understanding some human disorders and diseases. For example one of the most common human developmental disorders is a limb with fewer than five digits. When the limb anatomy of these affected individuals was compared with birds and amphibians that naturally have fewer than five digits, a high degree of similarity was found in the arrangement of muscular attachment to the skeleton [6]. The development of organisms from these phylogenetic classes could therefore offer insights into the basis of the human conditions, and the genetics of the human conditions could inform the understanding of digit evolution.
A further example lies in the middle ear, and the spread of middle ear infection (otitis media). In mammals the epithelium in the lower regions of the cavity is derived from a part of the early embryo called the endoderm, while the remainder, like the large part of the ossicles themselves, is formed by another group of early embryonic cells called the neural crest [7]. This dual origin appears to be unique to mammals and allowed for the creation of an air-filled cavity around the three-ossicles in the middle ear. The endoderm-derived epithelium is complex and covered in cilia while the neural crest-derived epithelium is simpler and unciliated. The two epithelia respond differently to damage, and regions adjacent to the neural crest-lined part of the middle ear (the cochlea and mastoid) are more susceptible to complications due to the spread of middle ear infections, compared to parts of the cavity lined by endoderm. The pattern of spread of ear injections therefore only makes sense in the context of how the ear develops and why it formed in that way during evolution. Understanding how a structure evolved, and how structures are linked during evolution and development, can therefore shed light on why and how abnormalities arise.