490 Dr. D. J. Cunningham. 



The European and the Australian present to all intents and 

 purposes an equal degree of prominence. The Chimpanzee exceeds 

 them both in this respect. It may be well to state that the index 

 expressed by the spine of the European closely corresponds with what 

 I have found to be the average (9'5) for Irish females. On the other 

 hand, when we consider the long period required for the full 

 development and thorough consolidation of the lumbar curve in the 

 human spine, we are forced to admit that it is highly improbable that 

 the index obtained for the Australian expresses the average degree of 

 curvature for that race. The girl from which it was taken was said 

 to be sixteen years old, and the condition of the epiphyses, &c., 

 afforded abundant evidence that the age had not been overstated. 

 Now Balaiidin,* who has examined the vertebral column in different 

 subjects at the tenth, twelfth, sixteenth, and twentieth year, assures 

 us that in none of these has he found consolidation of the lumbar 

 curve. He considers that it does not become absolutely stable until 

 adult life. Unfortunately we do not possess a sufficient number of 

 tracings of mesial sections of the young spine to come to a decided 

 opinion upon this point; but in the beautiful drawing which is given 

 by Dr. Symingtonf of such a section of a girl, aged thirteen, the 

 lumbar curve is very feebly marked. I am inclined to consider, 

 therefore, that further investigation will probably show that the 

 cirve index of the Australian girl is slightly below the adult 

 standard. The investigations which I carried out upon living Bush- 

 men, and which are recorded in my " Cunningham Memoir," certainly 

 seemed to indicate that in that race, at any rate, the lumbar curve in 

 the erect attitude is in excess of what we find in the European. Of 

 course the greater flexibility which I believe the spines of the black 

 races possess would tend to exaggerate the curve in the standing 

 posture, and at the same time produce the opposite effect when the 

 spine was relieved from its superincumbent burden. 



In the Australian spine the point of greatest projection in front of 

 the intersecting line which we have used to determine the degree of 

 lumbar prominence is the anterior border of the upper surface of the 

 fourth lumbar vertebra. This corresponds with what we find in the 

 European male, but in the European female the most projecting point 

 is placed higher, and is formed by the anterior border of the lower 

 surface of the third lumbar vertebra. But the true summit of the 

 lumbar curve is the point of maximum axial curvature, and in the 

 Australian this is situated in the centre of the fourth lumbar vertebra. 

 Again this is identical with what we observe in the European male, 



* " Beitrage fiber die Entstehung der physiologischen Kriimmung der Wirbelsaule 

 beim Menschen." Virchow's ' Archiv ftir Patholog. Anat. mid Physiol.,' vol. 57, 

 1873. 



f ' The Anatomy of the Child/ Edinburgh. 



