28 THE DESCENT OF MAN. Part I. 



such as seeds, entering the passage and causing inflam- 

 mation. 36 



In the Quadrumana and some other orders of mam- 

 mals, especially in the Carnivora, there is a passage near 

 the lower end of the humerus, called the supra-condyloid 

 foramen, through which the great nerve of the fore limb 

 passes, and often the great artery. Now in the humerus 

 of man, as Dr. Struthers 37 and others have shewn, there 

 is generally a trace of this passage, and it is sometimes 

 fairly well developed, being formed by a depending 

 hook-like process of bone, completed by a band of 

 ligament. When present the great nerve invariably 

 passes through it, and this clearly indicates that it is the 

 liomologue and rudiment of the supra-condyloid fora- 

 men of the lower animals. Prof. Turner estimates, as 

 he informs me, that it occurs in about one per cent, of 

 recent skeletons. 



There is another foramen in the humerus, which 

 may be called the inter-condyloid ; and this occurs in 

 various genera of anthropoid and other apes, 38 and occa- 

 sionallv in man. It is remarkable that this foramen 

 seems to have been much more frequently present 

 during ancient than during recent times. Mr. Busk 39 

 has collected the following evidence on this head : Prof. 

 Broca "noticed the perforation in four and a half per 

 " cent, of the arm-bones collected in the ' Cimetiere du 



36 M. C. Martins ("De l'Unite Organique," in 'Kevuo des Deux 

 Mondes,' June 15, 1862, p. 16), and H'ackel ('Generelle Morphologie,' 

 B. ii. s. 278), have both remarked on the singular fact of this rudiment 

 sometimes causing death. 



37 ' The Lancet,' Jan. 24, 18G3, p. 83. Dr. Knox, ' Great Artists and 

 Anatomists,' p. 63. See also an important memoir on this process by 

 Dr. Grube, in the ' Bulletin de l'Acad. Imp. de St. Pe'tersbourg,' torn. 

 xii. 1867, p. 448. 



38 Mr. St. George Mivart, ' Transact. Phil. Soc' 18 .7, p. 310. 



39 " On the Caves of Gibraltar," ' Transact. Intermit. Congress of 

 Prehist. Arch.' Third Session, 1869, p. 159. 



