150 
On the Sesamoids of the Knee- Joint 
two new sesaraoide bones, situated in the internal condyle. This is but very seldom met with in 
dissection, most subjects wanting it : but the other is seldom wanting. 
Fig. 3. Rejircsents the larger of these two sesamoide bones, separated from the cavity in the 
external condyle, in which it is generally lodged. 
Fig. 4. Shews the lesser sesamoide bone, of the internal condyle, separate. 
Apparently Heister was not left long to enjoy his triumph at the discovery of 
"two new sesamoide bones." In the long and somewhat abject note of 1732, he 
admits that the " rediscovery" was due to Trew ; he cites a few authors of the past 
who did not refer to the fahellae, but he does not adequately explain why he had 
apparently overlooked Vesalius, Eustachius, Riolanus, Cowper, etc. Indeed " re- 
discoveiy" is hardly the right description for the fabellae in 1715, when W. Ches- 
elden* could write in TJie Anatomy of the Human Body, l7lo, pp. 22 — 23: 
Ossa Sesamoidea... and sometimes one in the lower end of each Thigh-bone at the beginning of 
the Plantaris muscle. Their use is the same with the Patella. 
A brief and pregnant sentence almost the most suggestive since that of Eustachius. 
Another remarkable point is that Heister should have " rediscovered " the sup- 
positious influence of old age, one of the points the 17th century writers had much 
emphasised. 
Gruberf throws complete discredit on Heister's statements and especially on 
his plate. He says that Heister has placed the fabellae where they do not usually 
exist, and apparently Gruber considers that if they occurred at all they must have 
been pathological osteomata. Yet Heister says that he has found them in four 
corpses, one after another, and that they can always be found except in youthful 
cadavers, where they are cartilaginous J ! We are by no means certain that Heister's 
drawing, as far as the lateral fabella is concerned, is not a rough copy of the crude 
diagram in Trew's Dissertation of 1715 ; both exhibit the lateral fabella resting in 
a hollow, not of the articular surface, but of the lateral condylar eminence in its 
proximal part. As for the mesial fabella, which Trew does not provide, Heister 
rests it, the femur being vertical, on the commencement of the popliteal area as it 
springs from the articular surface of the mesial condyle : see our Plate II, Fig. 5. 
We believe the whole drawing to be imaginary copied from no actual subject, and 
totally out of accordance with all skiagrams of the lateral fabella in man with which 
we are acquainted. Not one of the first three drawings, Casserius (1632), Trew 
(1715) and Heister (1717), appears to us to represent in any way the fabella as it 
exists in man. The comedy of Heister on the fabella might well be preserved in 
the history of science as an illustration of the process of concocting a text-book. 
Saltzmann^ {Decas ohservationuiu. illuatriant anatumicarum, p. 6), Strassburg, 
1725, reports that he found no fahellae on the condyles of a given cadaver. Bass 
(Observationes a-iiaL-cJiirurg-ined., p. 220), Halle, 1731, and Albinus {Historia 
* He did not apparently return to the subject in his Osteographia or the Anatomy of Bonea, London, 
1733. 
j- Gruber, p. 11, footnote. 
X Acadeviiae Cassarco-Leopoldinae Naturae Curiosoriim Kphcmerides Centuria vi. Obs. xxix.pp. 245 — 6, 
Ossa sesamoidea in femore ...Francofurtiet Lipsiae, 1717. See also Centiiriavu. Obs. xxiii. pp.49— 51, 1719. 
g For fuller details of the following eight references : see Pfitzner's bibliography. 
