626 



SKELETON. 



tebra naturally independent of its costa.* 

 When we bisect the circles we make semi- 

 circles ; but by so doing we cannot possibly 

 lose sight of the fact, that both semicircles 

 once constituted the whole circle ; and in the 

 same way, when we separate the dorsal ver- 

 tebra (c) from its attendant ribs (4 in D), we 

 cannot obliterate from the memory the 

 idea, that the dorsal vertebra and its ribs once 

 formed an entire osseous quantity as that re- 

 presented by D, having the ribs appended. 

 When the human anatomist separates the 

 dorsal quantity (c, Jig. 444.) from the costal 

 elements 4 in D, and describes the quantity 

 of c as a vertebral figure, he commits an 

 error no less visibly opposed to natural evi- 

 dence than if he separated one half of the 

 dorsal element from the other half, and called 

 either half a vertebra. The dorsal vertebra 

 (c) of human anatomy is therefore insepa- 

 rable from its thoracic ribs (4 of D), and to 

 these several pieces naturally combined and 

 collectively contemplated (in D), I give the 

 name costo-vertebral quantity. 



PROP. V. The cervical vertebra develops the 

 costal appendages also. In order to prove in- 

 contestably that the anterior moiety (4) of the 



Fig. 445. 



A, dorsal vertebra ; B, cervical. 



transverse process (4, 3, Jig. 445. B), is the true 

 homologue of the thoracic rib (4^/Jg. 445. A), I 



* I call th reader's attention particularly to this 

 fact, as a starting point from which I set out with 

 my argument, which is to conduct to the recog- 

 nition of what I call whole quantities in the skeleton 

 axis. It will be seen afterwards, that owing to 

 this first error of the anthropotomist arbitrarily 

 severing the ribs from the dorsal spinal centre, and 

 giving to this latter the name vertebra, much con- 

 fusion has arisen in the comparative method and its 

 inferences. " Errores radicales et in prima digestione 

 mentis ab excellentia functionum et remediorum 

 sequentium non curantur." Novum Organon Sci- 

 entiarum, Aph. 30. 



shall lay down my remarks as follow : I se- 

 parate from the human spinal axis that body 

 (c,fig. 444.) which the human anatomist terms 

 the " dorsal vertebra ; " and on comparing it 

 with the cervical vertebra (A,J%. 444.), I find 

 that both figures are identical as to the number 

 and position of their elemental pieces in all 

 respects save one particular. This one point 

 in which the cervical vertebra (\,fig. 444.) dif- 

 fers from the dorsal vertebra is evidently the 

 anterior moiety (4) of the transverse process 

 of the cervical vertebra (A) ; for the dorsal 

 vertebra (c), such as the human anatomist 

 describes it, does not contain any elemental 

 piece as the true counterpart or homologue of 

 the element (4) which is posited as the an- 

 terior half of the cervical transverse process.* 

 In both vertebrae (A, c, Jig. 444.), I find the 

 spinous elements marked 1, the laminae or 

 neural arches (2), and the bodies or centra 

 (5) ; but it is attaching to the transverse pro- 

 cesses of both vertebrae that a doubt arises as 

 to their identity. Now if I call the posterior 

 moiety (3) of the transverse process of Jig. 

 445. B, the true homologue or counterpart 

 of the dorsal transverse process {Jig. 444. o, 

 3), I still have no element in the dorsal ver- 

 tebra {Jig. 444. c), wherewith to compare the 

 anterior half (4) of the cervical transverse 

 process of Jig. 445. B. But when I apply 

 the costal piece (4 >t /?g. 445. A) to the dorsal 

 vertebra, constituted of the pieces 1, 2, 3, 5, 

 then it becomes evident that this costa is 

 supplying the place of the anterior half (4) 

 of the cervical transverse process (fg- 445.). 



* All anatomists (the comparative as well as the 

 human) had, until lately, overlooked the compound 

 nature of the transverse process of the cervical 

 vertebra ; and even when this character of the pro- 

 cess came to be fully acknowledged, still so difficult 

 was it for them to emancipate themselves from the 

 toils of the original error committed by the anthro- 

 potomist, that we find them more willing to bend 

 the stubborn facts of nature in accordance with the 

 error, than to correct the oversight. Thus, agree- 

 ably with the artificial vertebral quantity of the 

 human anatomist's " dorsal vertebra," whose trans- 

 verse process is single, that of the cervical vertebra 

 being double, both processes were held to correspond 

 nevertheless ; and consequently, when such a fact 

 as that of the anterior nucleus of the cervical trans- 

 verse process being produced to the dimension of 

 a cervical rib appeared, they, with Meckel, inter- 

 preted this as a prolongation of the cervical trans- 

 verse process, which they had already regarded as 

 homologous with the process so named in the dorsal 

 vertebra: or with Blainville, they acknowledged 

 its costal character and proportions, but interpreted 

 it as belonging to a " category of ribs proper to 

 themselves," distinct from those of the thorax, and 

 also diverse to those called " cervical ribs " in other 

 classes of animals. And although it had been 

 broadly asserted, long since, by Hunauld, Sandi- 

 fort, and others, that the transcendental law gave 

 to even the human skeleton more than twelve pairs 

 of ribs the supernumerary ones which now and 

 then stood upon the cervical and lumbar vertebrae 

 still, owing to the obstructiveness of the pre-con- 

 ceived doctrine of the mammal cervix being ac- 

 counted limited to the number of seven ribless 

 vertebrae, even nature herself failed to prove the 

 invalidity of that general rule, though she presented 

 them with the sloth's cervix, which produces nine 

 vertebrae, and that of the human species occasionally 

 producing only five or six. 



