45£ NATURAL EXPEDIENTS ¥011 l^UPPLYING 
XIII.) As the bones of these prolongations feel as if they 
were bifid at their extremities, they might probably be each 
considered as the scanty rudiments, or even relics, of an 
ulna and radius ; while their firm and immoveable junction 
with the ossa humeri might be interpreted as the result of 
a process of anchylosis. But this view, though calculated 
to serve the purpose of anatomical description, meets with 
little countenance from physiology ; there is not the least 
indication that a joint ever existed, nor are there any signs 
of demarkation between the ossa humeri and the sliort 
.processes which form their respective terminations.* 
We may now consider the importance of these projecting 
additions to the length of the ossa humeri^ which ahnost 
indicate, that Nature, in meditating the formation of an 
ulna and a radius, had, from some inexplicable cause, been 
abruptly thwarted in her .design. Though proj.ecting 
scarcely above an inch, these processes, by more effectually 
enabhng the stumps to come into close junction, convert 
them into no mean organs of prehension, and supersede the 
necessity of exclusively using the toes as substitutes for 
hands. There is also another circumstance to be noticed 
in the construction of the arms, v/hich has its distinct use : — 
while the extremity of the right limb is well protected with 
muscles and cellular substance, that of the left limb, which 
Jias been described as a little longer than its fellow, is but 
points of the spinous processes of the scapulae is 1\ inches. Length o f th^ 
right arm l\ inches ; Jesser length of the projection \ inch ; greater length 
1^ inch. Length of the left arm 7^ inches; lesser length of the projection 
1 inch ; greater length inch. A general notion of the ossa humeri and 
their appendages, may be obtained by a reference to the engraved outlhies 
of his portrait, which are taken from a finished and weli-executed portrait 
of him by Mr Thomas Hunt of Manchester. 
* The mother attributes the loss which her son has sustained from birth 
to a foil she received during gestation^ The labour was -a natural one. 
