On the archetype and homologies of the vertebrate skeleton / by Richard Owen.

  • Richard Owen
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the archetype and homologies of the vertebrate skeleton / by Richard Owen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    ON >! 'i THE ARCHETYPE AND HOMOLOGIES 1) OF 1 ’HE VERTEBRATE SKELETON. Chapter 1.—Special Homology. Introduction. \s lEN the structure of organized beings began to be investigated, the ,rrts, as they were observed, were described under names or phrases suggested ■ their forms, proportions, relative position, or likeness to some I'amiliar ob- :ct. Much of the nomenclature of human anatomy has thus arisen, espe- iilly t lat of the osseous system, which, with the rest of man’s frame, was : -idied originally from an insulated point of view, and irrespective of any J aer animal structure or any common type. ' 'So when the exigences of the veterinary surgeon, or the desire of the ' rturalist to penetrate beneath the superficial characters of his favourite - ass, led them to anatomise the lower animals, they, in like manner, seldom • unced beyond their immediate subject, and often gave arbitrary names •] :the parts which they detected. Thus the dissector of the horse, whose . r^ention was more especially called to the leg as the most common seat , idisease in that animal, specified its ‘cannon-bone,’ its ‘great’ and ‘small’ . sStern-bones, its ‘ coffin-bone,’ and its ‘ nut-bone ’ or ‘ coronet ’: some , lanial bones were also named agreeably with their shape, as the ‘ os qua- iatum,’ for example. The ornithotomist described, in the same irrelative • L.mner, the ‘ossa homoidea,’ ‘ossa communicantia’ or ‘ interarticularia,’ ' i ‘ columella ’ and ‘ os furcatorium.’ Petit * had his ‘ os grele' and ‘ os massue;’ Herissantf his ‘os carre’; which, however, is by no means the ne bone with the ‘os carre’ or ‘os quadratum’ of the hippotomist. The /estigator of reptilian osteology described ‘hatchet-bones’ and chevron- nes, an ‘os annulare’ or ‘os en ceinture,’ and an ‘os transversumhe ewise defined a ‘columella’; but this was a bone quite distinct from that called in the bird. The ichthyotomist had also an ‘os transversum,’ which ain was distinct from that in reptiles, and he demonstrated his ‘os discoi- uin,’ ‘os ccenosteon,’ ‘os mystaceum,’ ‘ossa symplectica prinia,’ ‘secunda,’ ■rtia,’ ‘suprema,’ ‘postrema,’ &c. Similar examples of arbitrary names might lily be multiplied ; many distinct ones signifying the same part in difi'erent imals, whilst essentially distinct parts often received the same name from ' Observation,? Anatorniqiiea sur Ics muiivcmcns dii bcc tics Oiseaux, Mcmoircs tie I'Acntl. Saences, 1748, p. .34.5. NUm. de I'Acad, dc? Sciences, 177 I, p. 4!)7. n