I^ SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 92 



The true significance and function of the fossa have never been 

 definitely determined. Most of those who have dealt with it regard 

 it as a mere structural variant for the insertion of the gluteus maxnnus 

 muscle. Houze was of the opinion that the muscle inserted in its 

 borders as well as in its base, but the statement is of a rather general 

 nature and is not supported by any exact determinations. Bumiiller 

 attributed the fossa to the vastus lateralis; for Evangeli-Tramond, 

 and probably after him Paul-Boncour, it represented the free space be- 

 tween the insertions of the gluteus and the cruralis ; Pearson and 

 Bell doubted its dependence on the gluteus. There is no report in 

 any of the contributions to the subject, save that of Evangeli-Tramond, 

 of any observation on the actual contents of the fossa in the cadaver. 

 Houze, with probably Testut and others, believed the fossa to have 

 been more frequent in earlier than in recent man. This assumption 

 has not yet been sufficiently corroborated. Houze was evidently mis- 

 led, as far as his I'urfooz material was concerned, by the large 

 proportion of juvenile femora in the collection. 



Costa, Klaatsch. and Pearson and Bell came to regard the fossa as 

 an atavistic feature. Von Torok and Bertaux expressed the belief 

 that its frequency would show race differences. In Houze's and 

 Bertaux', but not in Costa's material, it appeared to be scarce in 

 the Negro. 



Von Torok, Evangeli-Tramond, and Pearson and Bell found the 

 fossa more frequent in the males than in the females ; Pearson and 

 Bell encountered it more commonly on the left than on the right 

 femur in modern Londoners, but the reverse in the Naquada. 



Houze encountered the fossa in the bones of fetuses and newborn 

 (Furfooz) ; Hyades and Deniker saw it in a Fuegian girl of eight; 

 Evangeli-Tramond was the first to recognize that it was better 

 defined in adolescent than in adult femora. Boncour, in hemiplegia 

 cases, saw the hollow more frequently and more marked on the 

 affected than on the sound side. 



In the opinion of Houze, Bumiiller, Martin, Lehmann-Nitsche, 

 Boncour, and Klaatsch, the fossa stood in close or even genetic asso- 

 ciation with the subtrochanteric flattening of the shaft and its lateral 

 lipping at that level — in other words, with platymery ; but such asso- 

 ciation was not acknowledged by Manouvrier or by Evangeli-Tramond, 

 and was found to be but slight by Pearson and Bell. 



Pearson and Bell could detect no significant association between 

 the fossa and the third trochanter ; and they failed to recognize it in 

 the gorilla. 



