198 ON THE MORPHOLOGICAL CONSTITUTION OF LIMBS. 



VII ON THE MORPHOLOGICAL CONSTITUTION 

 OF LIMBS. 



CARUS, maintaining generally the doctrine of cephalic 

 limbs, originally propounded by Oken, has at the same time 

 given much greater precision to the conception of the skeleton 

 of a limb, by viewing it as a system of elements radiating 

 from the exterior of a costiform arch. Professor Owen, while 

 he rejects, with British and the majority of foreign anatomists, 

 the fantastic doctrine of Oken and his immediate followers 

 with regard to cephalic limbs, has adopted the general doc- 

 trine of the skeleton of the limb as propounded by Carus, and 

 has developed and applied it with much ingenuity to the 

 illustration of actual structure. Professor Owen, has, however, 

 at the same time, by his allocation of the scapular girdle to 

 the occipital segment of the cranium as its hsemal arch, and 

 by the view which he takes of the opercular and branchio- 

 stegal elements, actually reproduced the doctrine of cephalic 

 limbs in another form. I do not propose in this communica- 

 tion to examine in detail the grounds on which Professor 

 Owen's general doctrine of limbs is based, but shall merely 

 state categorically those considerations which appear to me to 

 render it untenable. 



1. It is highly improbable that the sclerous elements of a 

 limb should be derived from one, or at most two, sclerotomes ; 

 while its other elements, and more especially its nerves, are 

 supplied by a greater number of somatomes. 



2. It appears to be highly improbable that the bones 

 which enter into the structure of an arm or leg, or that the 



