On the archetype and homologies of the vertebrate skeleton / by Richard Owen.
- Richard Owen
- Date:
- 1848
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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![19S In ‘II Giorno’—the chef-d’oeuvre of Correggio at Parma, in some respects the noblest production of modern painting—these characters have been overlooked in the foot of the kneeling Magdalen, in which the toes pro- gressively decrease in equable proportion from the second to the fifth. The same fault may be seen in the right foot of the Mercury in the painting, No. 10, in our National Gallery, attributed to the same great artist, and with which the beautiful right foot of the dead Saviour in the adjoining painting by the more truthful and severe Francia favourably contrasts. Both the Venus and Cupid in the Guido of the same Gallery afford examples of the conventional foot, whilst that (the left one) of the Christ in the ‘ Raising of Lazarus ’ by Sebastian del Piombo is an example of the beautiful and the true. To return from this digression to the immediate subject(fig.6) ofthepresent explanation, besides the ‘ bones ’ indicated by the figures and named in the adjoining column, the following are referred to by letters :—in the carpus (se) sc is the ‘ scaphoides,’ I the ‘lunare,’ cic the ‘ cuneiforme,’^; the ‘ pisiforme,’ / the ‘ tra])ezium,’ z the ‘ trapezoides,’ m the ‘ magnum,’ u the ‘ unciforrae :’ in the tarsus (es) s is the ‘ scaphoides’ or ‘ naviculare,’ a the ‘astragalus,’ cl the articular part of the ‘ calcaneum,’ cl' ‘its fulcral part,’ c i is the ‘ cuneiforme internum,’ cm the ‘cuneiforme medium,’ ce the ‘ cuneiforme externum.’ In the hand, the bones or segments of the rays immediately supported by the carpus are called ‘ metacarpals,’ the corresponding series in the foot ‘ me- tatarsals :’ the remaining segments are called ‘ phalanges;’ those nearest the trunk are ‘proximal;’ those furthest from it and supporting the nail ‘distal’ or ‘ ungual;’ the intermediate ones are the ‘middle phalanges ;’ the middle phalanx is absent in the thumb and great toe. It is only in the horse that the phalanges, from their great and peculiar development and frequent disease, have received special names : the hippotomist, in this respect, having done exactly what the anthropotomist had done before in regard to other bones, and for the same good reason. Both, however, will appreciate the necessity of knowing something more of a bone, besides its specialities of form and structure in relation to its uses and diseases, in order fully and truly to un- derstand it. Some knowledge of the archetype, indeed, would seem to be required to enable the anthropotomist to appreciate even the differences of conformation and proportion which must strike his eye in contemplating the immediate object of his descriptions. In the elaborate article on the ‘ Bones of the Foot,’ for example, in the ‘ Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology ’ by its accomplished editor, it is stated“ The toes are numbered from the inner or great toe ; they gradually diminish in length from the first to the fifth —“ All the metatarsal phalanges possess these general characters : that of the great toe is very considerably thicker than the others, and is slightly longer : the remaining ones differ but little in size,” vol. ii. p. 34?2. Now, besides the difference in degree of diminution observable in the skeleton of well-formed feet, and especially in the races where no artificial compression has been applied to the foot during growth, the proximal phalanx of the little toe is broader and more depressed in proportion to its length; those of the three middle toes being narrower or more compressed at the middle of their shafts*. * How little the true nature of the science of comparative anatomy, or anatomy rightly so called, is comprehended, and its indispensable aid to a true understanding of anthropo- tomy recognised, mav he inferred by the definitions of the science of ‘ Anatomy ’ in the latest summaries of human knowledge published in this couniry. Thus in the excellent ‘ Penny Cyclopa:dia ’ we read that “ Comparative anatomy includes an account of the struc- ture of all classes of animals excepting that of man \ Human anatomy is restricted to an ac-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21307830_0224.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
