PREFACE 



IT is not necessary to lay emphasis on the importance of a knowledge of the 

 skeleton as an integral part of the study of human anatomy, and, in the literature 

 bearing upon the subject, we find masterly accounts of the constituent bones which 

 rank as classics in the education of the student. In this book I have ventured to 

 wander in some degree from the well-trodden road and to lead the reader by other 

 ways to the comprehension of his subject. My intention has been to induce him to 

 think of the bones as they exist in the body rather than as they lie on the table before 

 him, and to do this I have laid stress because he must use the prepared specimens 

 on the meaning of small details and on the relations of the bone, and have relegated 

 the pure description of the dry bone to a secondary place : in other words, each part 

 of the skeleton has been used as a peg on which to hang a consideration of the neigh- 

 bouring structures, in the hope that this may afford a new point of view to the reader 

 and enable him to grasp the intimate connection between them. 



Such a way of regarding the skeleton opens up a very extensive field of description, 

 and within the limits of a student's hand-book it is only possible to deal with some out 

 of the many points which offer themselves for development, but I hope that those of 

 which I have treated in this volume may be of value to the student and may lead him 

 to think of the skeleton as something more than a dry subject for study, and to search 

 for reasons for the hundred and one abstract and concrete qualities which his own 

 observation will prove any particular bone to possess. If it has this effect, one of my 

 objects in writing the book will have been attained. 



The majority of the illustrations, which the generosity of Messrs. J. & A. Churchill 

 has enabled me to insert, are intended merely to help the student to apply the descrip- 

 tions in the text to the actual specimens : if, in spite of their many artistic imperfec- 

 tions, they are of use in this respect, I shall be content. They have been drawn from 

 specimens in my possession or in the Anatomical Department in the School of this 

 Hospital. 



It is a pleasure to acknowledge my indebtedness to my colleague, Dr. R. H. 

 Robbins, for his careful reading of the proofs, to Mr. R. M. Handfield- Jones for the 

 same service in a part of the work, and to my wife for help in preparing the book for 



the press. 



J. ERNEST FRAZER. 



MEDICAL SCHOOL, 



ST. MARY'S HOSPITAL, W. 



