THE HUMAN HEAD. 119 



admirably do the positions of the face, in the erect attitude 

 of man, and the prone posture of brutes, correspond to 

 these striking differences in construction ! 



The want of the intermaxillary bone has been assigned 

 by Camper as one of the grand characteristics which dis- 

 tinguish the human head from that of other animals. 



The superior maxillary bones of the human subject are 

 united to each other, and contain the whole of the upper 

 series of teeth : they are, however, separated in other mam- 

 malia by a third bone of a wedge shape, which contains the 

 incisor teeth, and was therefore called os incisivum. Since, 

 however, this bone is found where there are no incisor teeth, 

 as in the horned ruminants, in the elephant, and the two- 

 horned rhinoceros of Africa, and also where there are no 

 teeth at all, as in the ant-eater and some of the whale kind, 

 Blumenbach* has bestowed on it the more appropriate 

 name of os intermaxillare. It is a single bone in some 

 cases : in many others, composed of two symmetrical por- 

 tions. It is connected to the upper jaw bone by a facial 

 suture, running from the side of the nose to the alveolar 

 margin, and by a palatine suture passing transversely from 

 the alveoli to the anterior palatine foramina. 



That man possesses nothing analogous to this intermaxil- 

 lary bone of brutes is so clear, that we cannot easily account 

 for that excellent anatomist, Vica D'Azvaf, having disco- 

 vered any analogy in the human jaw to the structure of 

 quadrupeds. The only ground for such an opinion is the 

 small transverse fissure^ in the palate behind the alveoli of 



♦ De Generis Ilumani Varietate Natica, p. 35. 



+ Memoires de VAcad> des^ Sciences de Paris, 1780. 



+ The fissure in question is more distinct in young than in old subjects ; 

 and it is called b^lBLU.MENBACHjC'sutura inc\si\a') licschreibmg der Knochen- 

 Although overlooked by several modern osteologists, it was observed and ac- 

 curately described by the great anatomists of the sixteenth century, Vesalius, 

 Fallopiijs, and CoLur^cus. It is also mentioned by Riolan {Anthropogra- 

 phia, p. 649.) Galen has expressly enumerated an intermaxillary bone among 

 the component parts of the human face; and Vesalius very justly inferred 

 from this, among many equally striking proofs, that the anatomical descrip- 

 tions of that author, which had been universally received with the moiat implicit 



