REPORT ON THE BONES OF THE HUMAN SKELETON. 
31 
of 75, numbers which closely approximate to the ordinary European average. Pruner- 
Bey was the first to describe a male Lapp pelvis, and the same specimen, together with 
another male, was redescribed by Verneau, who gave 76 as the breadth-height index of 
his two males. The pelvis was distinctly smaller in this race than in Europeans generally, 
though in the proportion of its two great dimensions it does not seem to differ very 
materially from the European average. 
b. Pelvic Brim. 
That the inlet to the true pehds presented variations in outline and in the relative 
proportions of its conjugate and transverse diameters has been recognised by anatomists 
since the form of the pelvis in the different races of men began to be studied.^ Thus 
Vrolik pointed out that in the Negro the conjugate diameter of the brim was very great, 
in proportion to the transverse diameter, when compared with the European. But the 
first to put these variations into systematic shape was Professor M. J. Weber of Bonn, 
who described four prime forms of pelvis, which he designated oval, round, four-sided, and 
wedge-shaped. In the oval pelvis the transverse diameter of the brim distinctly exceeded 
the conjugate, and the pelvic inlet was transversely ovoid; in the round pelvis the trans- 
verse and conjugate diameters were almost equal, and the pelvic inlet was circular ; in the 
four-sided pelvis the transverse diameter exceeded the conjugate, and the sides and anterior 
and posterior boundaries of the pelvic brim were flattened so as to give it a quadrangular 
shape ; in the wedge-shaped pelvis the inlet was laterally compressed, and the transverse 
diameter greatly reduced near the symphysis, so that the pubic bones joined at an acute 
angle, the conjugate diameter was therefore greater than the transverse, and the outline 
of the inlet was cuneiform. Although he recognised that differences existed in the 
dimensions of the conjugate and transverse diameters in the same pelvis, yet Weber did 
not give such a numerical expression to these differences as to enable them to be referred 
to a common standard. A few years afterwards von Stein divided the form of the pelvic 
inlet into four classes — truncated-cordate (abgestumpfte Kartenherzform) ; elliptical, 
where the transverse diameter is the larger ; round ; and elliptical, where the conjugate 
diameter is the larger. He stated also that one would be justified in speaking of a differ- 
ence of breadth-index in the pelvis as in the skull. Like Weber he does not appear, 
however, to refer these differences to a common standard. This was, however, subse- 
quently done by Professor Zaaijer of Leyden, who, in his important memoir on the form 
of the pelvis in the women of Java (1866), suggested that in order to give a fixed 
standard of comparison between the conjugate and transverse diameters, the transverse 
1 This section on the Index of the Pelvic Brim as a Lasis for the Classification of the Races of men, as well as that on 
the Sacrum, have had several additions and modifications made to them since the publication of my papers on these 
subjects in the Journ. of Anat. and Phys., vol. xx., October 1885, and January 188 6. 
