Collarbone

“ In the gorilla, orang, and chimpanzee a muscle, called the elevator of the collar-bone (levator claviculoe) , is always present; this goes from the upper neck-bones to the collar-bone. It is found in about three per cent of human subjects. Other muscles, occasionally found in man in a rudimentary and fragmentary condition, are ones going from the back of the head to the collar-bone or shoulder-blade ”

“ In animals in which, as we know, but it is not unprofitable to repeat, the hand is in pronation, the radial side of the forearm being placed inside, we enumerate the carpal bones in counting the most internal as the first; this is the only method which permits us, in taking our point of departure from the human skeleton as our standard, to recognise the homologies of the bones of the carpal region. ”

“ She noticed that the hand he waved was covered with fresh abrasions, in the process of healing, and a glance at the other loose-hanging hand showed it to be in the same condition. Also, with quick, critical eye, she noted a scar on his cheek, another that peeped out from under the hair of the forehead, and a third that ran down and disappeared under the starched collar. She repressed a smile at sight of the red line that marked the chafe of the collar against the bronzed neck. ”

“ When a collar is too large to be adapted to a thin neck by stuffing, it will be well to cut a portion out of its centre at once, which can be done by first measuring the excess of space roughly, then take the collar off the animal; lay it on a board or table, and cut out evenly as much as is thought requisite, and if on testing the collar it is found still too large, cut out a little more from each side of the incision until the collar takes its proper bearing, but take care that a proper medium is observed regarding the position of the lower end, or bow, of the collar. ”

“ When the muscles have commenced to soften remove the body from the solution, pick the flesh away, and leave to dry.
Note that the main axis of the skeleton is composed of vertebræ placed end to end. How many vertebræ are there? What vertebræ bear ribs? The ribless ones beyond the body-cavity are called caudal vertebræ. Note the interspinal bones which support the fins, with large muscles on either side to control their action. Note that the group of bones supporting the pectoral fin is attached to the back of the brain-case and makes up the shoulder girdle. ”

“ In all the species the wrist in the fore limb—commonly called the knee—and the heel in the hind limb—the hock—is raised a considerable distance above the ground, at the same time that the whole weight of the body is carried upon the extreme tips of the toes, the terminal bones of which are expanded within the hoof to increase the basis of support. The collar-bone is absent in all, as it is in nearly every animal that does not use its fore limbs for any other purpose than that of carrying the weight of the front parts of its body. ”

“ An animal which walks like the Bear, on the sole of its foot, is said to be plantigrade: one which walks on its fingers, like the Lion, Cat, or Dog, is called digitigrade.
As in all animals in which the fore limbs are used for support, and not for prehension, the collar-bone, or clavicle, is either wholly absent or quite rudimentary, and the fore limb has therefore no bony connection with the trunk, but is attached simply by muscles and ligaments. ”

“ Behind the collar is a whitish gray median area continuous laterally with narrow light stripe down inner side of fore legs. This light area is sometimes divided by a dark median line joining collar with buff of belly. Belly and chest buff, essentially like that of sides, with which it forms no contrast in color. As on the sides the buff is clouded by black hair tips, but the hairs are scarcely if at all gray at base. On chest the dark hair tips tend to form a median stripe, which is sometimes sharply defined and continuous with the ochraceous line occasionally dividing white of breast. ”

“ Does the thigh have one bone in each? The shank of man has two bones, shin and splint bone. Do you see a groove near the end in the shank bone of a frog (Fig. 252) , indicating that it was formed by the union of a shin and a splint bone? The first two of the five bones of the ankle are elongated, giving the hind leg the appearance of having an extra joint (Fig. 253) . The foot consists of six digits, one of which, like the thumb on the fore limb, is rudimentary. The five developed toes give the five digits of the typical vertebrate foot. ”

“ The bones which support the fore limb are one of the distinctive regions of the skeleton defining the animal's place in nature. Among most of the lower vertebrata, such as Amphibians and Reptiles, the girdle is a double arch—the arch of the collar bone or clavicles in front, and the arch of the shoulder-blade or scapula behind. ”

“ The shoulder joint of a bird is formed by the shoulder blade and coracoid, this last being the bone which is attached to the breast bone and on which comes the direct pull of the wing, and in front of the coracoids, running downwards towards the sternum, is the wishbone or furcula, corresponding to our collar bones or clavicles. ”

“ The ankle, or tarsus, consists of the same seven bones as in man, and these bones are so arranged, or bound together by ligaments, as to form a transverse and an antero-posterior arch. In no ape or monkey, however, do the lower ends of the inner metatarsals form the anterior point of support of the antero-posterior arch, as in man. The calcaneum, except in the gorilla, is shorter compared with the spine than in man. The phalanges of the foot are the same in number as in man, except that the great toe of the orang-utan has often but one. ”

“ The clavicle, or collar bone (fig. 14) , is an elongated bone which extends from the upper end of the sternum horizontally outward, Clavicle. *° articulate with the acromion process of the scapula. It presents a strong sigmoidal curve, which is associated with the transverse and horizontal direction of the axis of the human shoulder. It is slender in the female, but powerful in muscular males ”

“ Dr. Mayer considers that this spur or hook is a true nail, in the cavity of which is a semi-cartilaginous bone representing the last joint of a toe; this is jointed to a small bone representing the metatarsus, the little projection from the swollen joint above is the tarsus, and the slender bone above is the tibia or leg-bone, imbedded in the muscles, and terminated by a slender curved and pointed filament of cartilage jointed to it, which probably represents the evanescent rudiment of a femur or thigh-bone. ”

“ Now in the Koolo the second row of wrist-bones—or as they are called from the Latin, carpus, a wrist—carpal bones are movable on the first row, and muscular exertion can bend, not only the metacarpal bones and the fingers, but also the wrist-bones. Hence the hand is more movable in the bending direction than that of man, and the reason is because of the peculiar requirements of the creature’s life. ”

“ In the forearm there is, as in the human skeleton, the radius and the ulna. But the ulna has lost its function, and is fused with the radius. What we call the knee in the horse’s fore-limb is really the wrist. There are eight bones in the human wrist. ”

“ As we have already described, the clavicles or collar-bones exercise considerable influence in expanding the shoulders and chest; and this is an essential provision, for the purpose of counteracting the traction of the pectoral muscles, or those of the chest, whose tendency is to pull the shoulders forward, and by their action diminish the size of the thoracic cavity. ”

“ Each of these little round flat pieces of the backbone is called a vertebra, and is of a very peculiar shape. Suppose you took a bung of bone, and fastened on to one side of its edge a ring of bone. That would represent a vertebra. The solid bung is what is called the body, and the hollow ring is what is called the arch of the vertebra. Now if you put a number of these bodies together one upon the top of the other, so that the bodies all came together and the rings all came together, you would have something very like the vertebral column (see Frontispiece, also Fig. 2) . ”

“ The irregularly formed drum has connection with the air-containing cavity of the skull, and by a thin cartilaginous canal, the Eustachian tube, with the pharynx. The auditory ossicles are represented by only a single bone, called the columella, which most closely represents the stapes of mammals. ”

“ When their excellencies give orders that anyone is to be strangled, he is made to sit down on a stool, the back turned to this collar, and his head is so placed that the collar goes round one half of the neck. ”

“ In Sphargis (fig. 31) all the ribs are free; in Fig. 31.—Three Vertebrae of Sphargis coriacea. c, vertebral centra; n, neural arches; r, ribs. the other Chelonians the ribs, generally in the recent species, flatten and become surrounded by the growing membrane bone of the dorsal plates, and the cartilage of the ribs (except the capitular and neck portion of the rib, which cannot be got at by the dermal bones) undergoes a process of calcification. ”

“ In the wide range of the animal kingdom there are scarce any two pieces of organization that less resemble one another in form than the vertebræ of the placoids resemble their skulls; and the difference is not merely external, but extends to even their internal construction. In both skull and vertebræ we detect an union of bone and cartilage; but the bone of each vertebra forms an internal continuous nucleus, round which the cartilage is arranged, whereas in the skulls it is the cartilage that is internal, and the bone is spread in granular points over it. ”

“ The stapes forms a close connection with the hammer and the incus. In birds, where there is a single ear-ossicle, the columella, the middle piece of arch I forms, as we have seen, the quadrate, by means of which the lower jaw is joined to the skull. The proximal end of Meckel's cartilage, which in mammals forms the hammer, here gives the articular surface between the lower jaw and the quadrate. The columella is formed from the middle piece of the three into which the cartilage of the second arch segments. It is, therefore, the homologue of the stapes in mammals. ”

“ In the very young rabbit, the limb bones, vertebral column, and many of the skull bones are simply plates and bars of cartilage; the future membrane bones, however are planned out in connective tissue. The development of the latter is simple, the connective tissue corpuscles functioning by a simple change of product as osteoblast. The development of the cartilage bones, however, is more complicated. ”

“ Extending from behind the ear to the forepart of the collar-bone, they are always more strongly developed in a boy than in a girl, and in a man than in a woman. These you can feel at the root of the neck and the forepart of the throat by twisting your head right and left ”

“ Thus, with regard to the upper extremities, it has been observed, that the collar-bone, not separating so much the arm from the axis of the body, the extent of its movements is limited; and this circumstance explains why women, who wish to overcome great resistances with the superior members, experience difficulty in doing so—why, for example, when they wish to throw a stone, they are obliged to turn the body on the foot opposite to the arm with which they throw. ”

“ The vertebral column begins to show the S-shaped flexure, characteristic of Man's back-bone; it presents also a human character in the form of its second neck vertebræ, and there are thirteen pairs of ribs, as in Man. ”

“ Little by little, but with much excelsior and twine, the muscles are gradually built up. Leave the bones bare at the points where nature does. The hind leg must have its tendon of Achilles before it can be finished. To make this, drill a hole through the end of the calcaneum, or heel bone; pass a long wire through for half its length, twist the two halves tightly together until they will reach half-way up the thigh, then wrap tow around the twisted wire from the heel bone up, making the tendon larger as you proceed. ”

“ The delicate sense of feeling depends on the nervous supply; and the power of clasping and holding on upon the bending or flexor muscles. A bony framework supports all these structures, and runs from the last bone of the sacrum to the tip, and consists of many separate vertebral bones placed in a long series. The first few bones which join on to the sacrum, and form the root of the tail, resemble the back-bone pieces, or vertebræ, to a certain extent. Each has a body, and also processes for jointing with the one before and behind, and a spine also. ”

“ Should the colt, by laying back his ears, showing the whites of his eyes, hugging his tail, and other demonstrations of wickedness, evince his objections to being handled behind the girth, one of the fore feet must be held up and strapped, the buckle of the strap being on the outside of the arm, the foot brought so close to the point of the elbow that no play is left to the knee joint. ”

“ I find that the vertebral column of a full-grown Gorilla, in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, measures 27 inches along its anterior curvature, from the upper edge of the atlas, or first vertebra of the neck, to the lower extremity of the sacrum; that the arm, without the hand, is 31-1/2 inches long; that the leg, without the foot, is 26-1/2 inches long ”