THE LUMBAR CUKVE IN SOME AMERICAN RACES. 59 



Cunningham has further concluded that "the form 

 adaptation of the vertebral bodies must be regarded as the 

 consequence, and not as a cause, of the curve ; at the 

 same time it cannot be due to an immediate and mechan- 

 ical influence operating upon the vertebral bodies during 

 the life of the individual. If it were so, the same char- 

 acters would be present in the lumbar vertebrae of the 

 low races, and even of the anthropoid apes. It is an 

 hereditary condition." 



As to the causes of such great variations among different 

 races Cunningham says — " The European, who leads a 

 life which early necessitates his forsaking the erect atti- 

 tude, except as an intermittent occurrence, and then for 

 short periods, has sacrificed in the lumbar part of the 

 vertel)ral column flexibility for stability. It is evident 

 that the deeper the bodies of the vertebrje grow in front, 

 the more permanent, stable and fixed the lumbar curve 

 will i)ecome, and the more restricted will be the power 

 of forward-bending in this region of the spine. 



The savage,. in whose life agility and suppleness of 

 body are of so great an account, who pursues game in a 

 prone condition, and climbs trees for fruit etc., pre- 

 serves the anthropoid condition of vertebr;e, and in con- 

 sequence possesses a superior flexibility of the lumbar 

 part of the spine."' 



In 1888, in a paper by Cunningham, the title of which 

 has already been given, he carried his investigations still 

 farther by examining the fresh spine of an Australian 

 girl, a full account of which is there given. In this he 

 investigates the indices of the intervertebral disks. The 

 results are self-explanatory and show at once the deter- 

 mining factor in the curve of the living individual. 



' "Nature," Fel). 18, ia-*6, p- 379. 



