TRANSACTIONS OF WAGNER 

 46 



HAWAIIAN SKULLS 



conditions, the left external pterygoid plate is much smaller than the right, 

 and the teeth on the corresponding side of the skull are not worn. The left 

 maxillary sinus is open posteriorly and expanded anteriorly. The left orbito- 

 sphenoidal septum is absorbed in part and the sphenomaxillary fissure enor- 

 mously widened. The ascending process of the malar bone measures 15 

 mm. on the left side and 17 mm. on the right. The alisphenoidosqua- 

 mosal suture remains open on the base of the skull, but is closed on the 

 right. It is evident that a blow on the left zygoma had thrown an excess of 

 labor in mastication on the teeth of the right side. They were, indeed, worn 

 away before the fortieth year. The act of chewing, however, had strengthened 

 the muscular impression on this side of the skull. From disuse the parts on 

 the left side remained uniformly less developed than on the right. 



The asymmetry of the external pterygoid plates is marked in a skull 

 from a dissecting room, in the collection of Professor M. H. Cryer, of the 

 University of Pennsylvania. The right plate measured 15 mm. and the left 

 2O mm. in diameter. In addition the left extended to the spinous process, 

 and was perforated at its base near the oval foramen. Coincident with the 

 larger plate was obliteration of the articular eminence, a greatly reduced 

 condyloid process of the lower jaw, and a relatively strong impression for the 

 left temporal muscle. The skull was that of a nearly edentulous female 

 whose sutures were closed, this statement even including the squamosa- 

 parietal suture. 



The wear of the condyloid process is sometimes so great as to cause the 

 expanded part normally articulating with the glenoid cavity to disappear. 

 Such lower jaws really articulate with the neck of the bone, which is thus 

 adventitiously converted into a condyle. In one specimen of the lower jaw, 

 from a dissecting room, in my possession, of a nearly edentulous individual, 

 the left condyle measured but 10 mm. in length and 7 mm. in width. In a 

 second specimen the condyloid process had been worn away to the level of 

 the beginning of the posterior dental canal ; the coronoid process being 

 apparently elongated on the condyloid recedent so that it represents a height 

 from the alveolus of 33 mm. 



In No. 1104, H. U., a markedly dolicocephalic skull, massive, had with 

 prominent glabella a large outgrowth of bone, the result of arthritis at the 

 right condyloid process, was accompanied with numerous minute changes in 

 the corresponding half of the skull. The changes were apparently the results 

 of disuse following the inefficiency of the right mandibulosquamosal articu- 



