396 GENERAL ANATOMY. 



meet, and are fitted to each other, and that in which they are 

 mutually connected. 



The long bones meet and are joined to each other by their 

 extremities; the broad bones commonly by their edges; the 

 short bones, by various points of their surface. The articular 

 parts of the bones are most commonly prominences and de- 

 pressions of different forms, and which are adapted to each 

 other. 



The means of union are cartilages, cartilaginiform ligaments, 

 and fibrous ligaments. They are placed, either between sur- 

 faces which they connect, and thus render continuous, or 

 around surfaces which remain in contact. 



Articulations have for their common use, to connect the 

 bones, and thus form them into a united whole, the skeleton. 



Of the articulations some are moveable and others not so in 

 a sensible degree; none of them, strictly speaking, however, 

 is incapable of motion. 



According to the form of the articular parts, the mode of 

 union of these parts, and their solidity and mobility variously 

 combined, the articulations are divided into three genera, and 

 into several species and varieties, which have been uselessly 

 multiplied; the synarthrosis, or continuous and immoveable 

 articulation; the diarthrosis, or contiguous and moveable arti- 

 culation; and the amphiarthrosis, or mixed articulation, which 

 is continuous like the first, and moveable like the second. 



Each articulation has a proper name, composed of the names 

 of the bones which are united in it. 



624. Synarthrosis,* or the immoveable articulation, re- 

 sults from the union of all the bones of the skull and face, 

 excepting the lower jaw, by edges more or less thick, and 

 furnished with inequalities which fit into each other, often 

 dovetailed, and always invested with a synarthrodial cartilage 

 intimately united to the two articulated parts. The perioste- 



* Duveniey. Lettre contenant plusieurs nouvelles observations sur Fosteok- 

 gie. Paris, 1689. F. G. Hunauld. Rcch. JLnat. sur ks os du crane de 

 Fhomme. Acacl. des Sc. 1730. E. G. Bose. Program, de suturar. cranii 

 liumnni fabricat. et usu. Lips. 1763. Gibson, on the use of sutures m the 

 skulls of animals, in Mem. of the Soc. of Manchester, 2d series, vol. i. 1805. 



