THE LUMBAR CURVE IN SOME AMERICAN RACES. 55 



Cunningham before the Royal Society in 1888, which 

 was printed in full in Vol. 45 of the "Proceedings." 



Other writers on this subject have been Huxley, Sym- 

 ington, Ravenel and Aeby. The brothers Sarasins have 

 reported the results of their investigations of the curve 

 among the Veddahs in their invaluable work "Die Weddas 

 von Ceylon." (Wiesbaden, 1893).i 



In all of the above investigations the method of pro- 

 cedure is as follows. The anterior and posterior vertical 

 depth of each vertebral body is measured separately. 

 The anterior depth is taken as 100 and so the index of 

 each vertebra can be obtained. By taking the sum of 

 the anterior depths and the sum of the posterior depths 

 the Lumbo-vertehral or Lumbar Index is obtained by 

 this formula : 



Sum of posterior measurements X 100 



Sum of anterior measurements ~ 



The index, thus obtained, will be 100, when the sum 

 of the posterior measurements equals the sum of the an- 

 terior measurements ; less than 100, when the sum of 

 the anterior measurements exceeds the sum of the poste- 

 rior ; and more than 100 when the opposite condition 

 prevails. 



To these three conditions Turner has applied the fol- 

 lowing terms: Orthorachic (straight spine) Index 98- 

 102, Kurtorachic (curve convex forwards) Index 98 — , 

 Koilorachic (curve concave forwards) Index 102-|-. 



To illustrate the method of procedure, I give the 

 measurements of the lumbar vertebra^ of the spine of a 

 European which may be regarded as fairly typical. 



'A complete bibliography of the lumbar spine is to be found In the Cunningham 

 Memoir, pp. H3-11G. 



