of Edinburgh^ Session 1864-65. 
327 
1. On Variability in Human Structure, with illustrations 
from the Flexor Muscles of the Fingers and Toes. By 
William Turner, M.B. (Bond.), Demonstrator of Anatomy 
in the University. 
The author, after referring to variations in the external form of 
the body in different individuals, and to the relations between ex- 
ternal form and internal structure, proceeded to discuss the subject 
of variability in the different organic systems. He showed that 
internal structural variations conferred upon the individual char- 
acters as distinctive as any peculiarities in external configuration. 
It was argued- that in the development of the individual a morpho- 
logical specialisation occurs, both in internal structure and external 
form, so that each man’s structural individuality is an expression 
of the sum of the individual variations of all the constituent parts 
of his frame. 
The muscular systeni was adduced as affording abundant illustra- 
tion of the specialisation of structure in the individual, and an 
analysis was given of a number of dissections of the flexor muscles 
of the fingers and toes. In the long flexors of the thumb and 
fingers, not only were variations in bulk, extent of attachment, and 
mode of division described, but the frequent existence and variously 
modified arrangements of bands connecting together not only the 
muscles, or divisions of muscles, situated on the same plane, but 
those situated on different planes were pointed out. A close ana- 
lysis of the arrangements of the flexor hallucis longus, flexor 
longus digitorum, flexor accessorius, flexor brevis digitorum, and 
lumbricales, in thirty dissected feet, was then given, and the extent 
of variation which these specimens exhibited detailed at consider- 
able length. The necessity of dissecting carefully the soft parts in 
the different races of men, so as to study the amount of variation 
which might occur in them, was insisted on in the paper. 
2. On the Principle of Onomatopoeia in Language. By 
Professor Blackie. 
Professor Blackie read a paper on Onomatopoeia, or the influence 
of the imitative principle on the formation of language. Without 
