On the difference in the mode of ossification of the first and other metacarpal and metatarsal bones / by Allen Thomson.

  • Thomson, Allen, 1809-1884.
Date:
[1868?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the difference in the mode of ossification of the first and other metacarpal and metatarsal bones / by Allen Thomson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    ON THE DIFFERENCE IN THE MODE OF OSSIFICA- TION OF THE FIRST AND OTHER MEl’ACARPAL AND METATARSAL BONES. By Allen Thomson, M.D., F.R.S., Professor of Anatomy in the University of Glasgow. All anatomists wlio have given attention to the progress of ossification in childho<xl are aware of the fact that, at the age wlien the epiphyses of the long-shaped l>ones of the hand and foot arc most obvious, viz. from ten to fifteen years, each meta- carj>al and metatarsal bone, and each one of the digital pha- langes usually con.sists of two ossified pieces united by inter- vening cartilage find separable by maceration; one of these pieces forming the shaft and main part of the bone and ex- tending quite to one extremity, while the other smaller piece con.stitutes an epij>hysis occupying the opposite extremity of the bone. The epiphysis occupies the proximal oxtnmdty in all the digital phalanges, while in the metacarpal and meta- tarsfd bones the epiphysis is usually proximal in the first (or that of the thumb and great toe), aud distal in the four re- maining bones. The fact in human anatomy now referred to has been very generally de.scribcd in manuals and systematic vvork.s; and some authors have even regarded the difference l>etween the first and remaining metacaqial and metatarsal bones as so constant and marked as to have founded upon it an argument for re- garding the first of these bones as properly constituting one of the digital series of l)ones, that is, the first or proximal phalanx of the thumb or great toe*. * On this ffronnd Humphry {Treatitt on ih* Human SkfU-ton, Cainb. 1S58, p. 31>5), incliueii to regard the bone whicdi rests on the trapezium in the bond as intenneiliate between a digital phalanx and a metacarpal bone, though he con- siders it on the whole to be most correct to call it a metacarpal l)one, and regards the second phalanx to l>e the missing segment in the thumb. On this and other grounds I’nif, Stmthers ( On Variation in the number of Fingers and Toes,” &c., in Kdin. Srw J’hilot. Journ. for 1803, Vrd. xviii. ]>. Ill), regards as established “ that the bone which is wanting in the human thumb and great toe, and in the internal digit of other live-toed Mammals, is the metacarfial and metatarsal, although custom and convenience loa<i us to apjily these terms to the bone which homologically is a proximal phalanx. 9-‘2