REPORT ON THE BONES OF THE HUMAN SKELETON. 
75 
Bushman, and the anterior part of the 5th vertebra was almost in the same vertical 
plane as the lower border of the 4th. The interval between the bodies of these two 
bones was not so strongly wedge-shaped as in the Bush skeleton. In the Eucla, Manly 
Cove, and West Victoria skeletons, the lower border of the body of the 4th lumbar was 
also the most prominent point in the lumbar region, and the body of the 5th lumbar 
inclined backwards and downwards from this point. But in these three skeletons the 
anterior convexity showed itself at the body of the 3rd lumbar vertebra. This was 
apparently also the case in the Queensland Australian, but the defect in the development 
of the body of the 5th lumbar described on p. 63, and some osseous outgrowths from the 
sides of the bodies of the other lumbar vertebrae, gave a twist to this part of the column 
which interfered with accurate observation. 
In one of the Oahuan skeletons the most prominent point in the lumbar region was 
either the lower border of the body of the 4th lumbar or the upper border of the body of 
the 5th lumbar, and from the dorsal region downwards to this point the curve of the 
spine was concave forwards, whilst the body of the 5th lumbar sloped downwards and 
backwards from it. In another Sandwich Islander the form was somewhat modified, 
owing to the body of the 2nd lumbar projecting somewhat in front of both the 1st and 
the 3rd lumbars. 
Variations in the anterior curvature of the spine in the lumbar region would in all 
probability affect the outline of the back of the body in that region, as one would expect 
the loins to have a deeper hollow when the spine possessed a strong anterior convexity, 
than when it did not have a well-marked lumbar curve. Luschka had, indeed, some years 
ago pointed out^ that a strong concavity in the loins was a character of the body of a 
well-formed woman, in whom, as has already been stated, the lumbar spine is more convex 
forwards than in men. How far these departures in the lower races of men from the 
proportions of the front and back of the vertebral bodies, as seen in the higher races, 
may serve to modify the curvature of the lumbar spine in the erect attitude can only be 
definitely settled when the intervertebral discs, as weU as the vertebral bodies, have 
been measured, and when the influence exercised by the discs on the production 
of the anterior lumbar convexity has been accurately determined. 
The upper and lower surfaces of the body of a lumbar vertebra are parallel to each 
other only in those bones in which the vertical diameters anteriorly and posteriorly are 
equal, but as this is the exception and not the rule, it follows that in the lumbar spine 
it is customary for these surfaces not to be parallel, but to approximate in their antero- 
posterior diameter to the form of a wedge. My observations show that the surfaces of 
the body are either parallel, or approach most closely to it, either in the 2nd or 3rd 
lumbar, whilst they diverge most widely from it in the 1st and 5th lumbar. Aeby, 
in his examination of the European spine, found^ the 2nd lumbar to be the vertebra in 
' Die Anatomie des Menschen, Bd. ii. p. 80, 1863. ^ Archiv fiir Anatomie, p. 91, 1879. 
