Anatomical variations (III) / by W.W. Wagstaffe and Robert W. Reid.

  • William Warwick Wagstaffe
Date:
[1878]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Anatomical variations (III) / by W.W. Wagstaffe and Robert W. Reid. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Supernumerary fibres to Scalenus anticus. This variation was observed in the left side of the neck of a male body. It consisted of a number of fibres, arising by tendon from the inner border of the upper surface of the first rib, immediately behind and continuous with the rest of the seal, anticus, also from the anterior surface of the apex of the pleura, and inserted by two digitations into the anterior tubercles of the transverse processes of the sixth and seventh cervical vertebrae. The slip was two inches long, tendinous at its origin and fleshy at its insertion. It lay behind the second stage of the subclavian artery, parallel with the scalenus anticus, and at its insertion sent forward a few fleshy fibres to blend with that muscle. The more common accessory scaleni bundles have been arranged under distinctive names from the time of Albinus, and the present case is one of the varieties known as sc. minimus. The sc. lateralis is a separate portion of the sc. posticus, and the sc. accessorius similarly a hinder and free portion of the sc. medius. These and the unnamed varieties are perhaps of value as indicating the transition from levatores costarum which the scaleni appear allied to, a relation borne out by their arrangement in birds (Mivart). This appears to have been a case in which the scalenus anticus was perforated by the subclavian artery, and the deeper portion remained very distinct and attached to the pleura. It is described by Meckel after Albinus as the sc. minimus, but no mention is made by him of attachment to the pleura, and Meckel states1 that it usually lies in front of the axillary vessels. Macalister,2 however, makes the sc. minimus to be attached to the second rib, and, curiously enough, on Meckel’s authority. The original text* of Albinus is clear enough: “ minimus, qui valde parvus, oritur a summo margine cost® prim®, statim pone Priorem” (i.e. sc. ant. vel prior), but the relation of this slip to the artery and to the pleura is not here referred to. Dr. Sibson has described the attachment of fibres 1 * Descriptive Anatomy,’ vol. i, p. 224. ‘ Trans. Royal Irish Academy,’ vol. xxv. 3 Albinus, ‘ Hist. Musculorum horn.,’ 404.
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