220 ANATOMY OF THE KNEE-JOINT. 



IX. ON THE HORIZONTAL CUKVATUKE OF THE 

 INTERNAL FEMORAL CONDYLE ; ON THE MOVE- 

 MENTS AND RELATIONS OF THE PATELLA, 

 SEMILUNAR CARTILAGES, AND SYNOVIAL 

 PADS OF THE HUMAN KNEE-JOINT. 



ASSUMING the ordinary descriptions of the human knee-joint, 

 and the more precise observations of the brothers Weber 

 (Mechanik der Menschlichen Gehwerkzeuge, 1836), as present- 

 ing the present state of information on the subject, I shall 

 proceed to explain the arrangement and use of the peculiar 

 curvature at the fore-part of the inner condyle of the femur, 

 as recently determined by Professor Meyer of Zurich (Die 

 Mechanik des Kniegelenks, Mullet? s Archiv., 1853) ; and the 

 movements and relations of the patella, semilunar cartilages, 

 and synovial pads of the articulation, as observed by myself. 



Before entering on the peculiarities of the inner condyle, 

 I may remind you that the knee-joint consists of two articu- 

 lations, with a common synovial membrane, the patello- 

 femoral, and the femoro-tibial, the latter being double. The 

 articular surface of the femur is consequently divided into 

 a trochlea for the former, and two condyles for the latter; 

 the condyles being separated from one another by the inter- 

 condyloid fossa, and from the trochlea by two shallow oblique 

 grooves. 



Anatomists had not hitherto noticed that the so-called 

 obliquity of the inner condyle of the femur is in fact, as 

 Meyer has pointed out, a curvature of its anterior third, with 



