THE SIZE OF THE AETICULAR SUEFACES OF THE LONG 



BONES AS CHAEACTERISTIC OF SEX; AN 



ANTHEOPOLOGICAL STUDY. 



BY 



THOMAS DWIGHT, M. D., LL. D., 



ParJcman Professor of Anatomy at the Harvard Medical School. 



With 6 Plates. 



The pelvis has long been recognized as a reliable guide to the sex 

 of the skeleton and still longer as the greatest peculiarity of the female 

 figure. Fr^^ni twenty to thirty years ago several papers appeared on 

 the means of determining the sex of the skull. It is, I think, now 

 generally admitted that the skull is of value in the hands of an expert; 

 but the late Professor Brinton very near the end of his life declared 

 that apart from the pelvis there is no guide to the sex among the bones. 



Hyrtl (1) long ago wrote: " I find the difference between the male and 

 female sternum so clearly expressed by the proportion of the manu- 

 brium to the bod}' that it is hardly possible to err in determining the sex. 

 The manubrium of the female sternum exceeds in length that of half 

 the body; while in the male sternum it is at least twice as long as the 

 manubrium. I (3) was able to show on sufficiently large series that 

 while this was true of the average male and female sterna, it was not 

 true of about 40 per cent of the individual instances, so that it was 

 very possible indeed to err in determining the sex by that means. Prob- 

 ably the rule applies to well-formed bodies, but not to a large proportion 

 of those that we meet with. The femur again is a bone that is to the 

 expert of much value. A typical male and a typical female femur can 

 hardly be mistaken; but practically there are a great many thigh bones, 

 perhaps 75 per cent, on which an expert would be unwilling to give an 

 opinion by methods hitherto in use. Without going so far as Professor 

 Brinton, we may say that with our present methods, excepting the 

 pelvis, and even this is not always conclusive, in the great majority of 

 cases the expert must form his opinion of the sex of bones from their 

 general appearance, and that comparatively rarely can he speak (still 

 excluding the pelvis) with any great certainty. 



American Journal or Anatomy. — Voi,. TV. 



