the humerus, called the supra-condyloid foramen, through which the
great nerve of the fore limb and often the great artery pass. Now in
the humerus of man, there is generally a trace of this passage, which
is sometimes fairly well developed, being formed by a depending
hook-like process of bone, completed by a band of ligament. Dr.
Struthers (49. With respect to inheritance, see Dr. Struthers in the
Lancet, Feb. 15, 1873, and another important paper, ibid. Jan. 24,
1863, p. 83. Dr. Knox, as I am informed, was the first anatomist who
drew attention to this peculiar structure in man; see his Great
Artists and Anatomists, p. 63. See also an important memoir on this
process by Dr. Gruber, in the Bulletin de l Acad. Imp. de St.
Petersbourg, tom. xii. 1867, p. 448.), who has closely attended to the
subject, has now shewn that this peculiarity is sometimes inherited, as
it has occurred in a father, and in no less than four out of his seven
children. When present, the great nerve invariably passes through it;
and this clearly indicates that it is the homologue and rudiment of the
supra-condyloid foramen of the lower animals. Prof. Turner estimates,
as he informs me, that it occurs in about one per cent. of recent
skeletons. But if the occasional development of this structure in man
is, as seems probable, due to reversion, it is a return to a very
ancient state of things, because in the higher Quadrumana it is absent.
There is another foramen or perforation in the humerus, occasionally
present in man, which may be called the inter-condyloid. This occurs,
but not constantly, in various anthropoid and other apes (50. Mr. St.
George Mivart, Transactions Phil. Soc. 1867, p. 310.), and likewise
in many of the lower animals. It is remarkable that this perforation
seems to have been present in man much more frequently during ancient
times than recently. Mr. Busk (51. On the Caves of Gibraltar,
Transactions of the International Congress of Prehistoric
Archaeology, Third Session, 1869, p. 159. Prof. Wyman has lately shewn
(Fourth Annual Report, Peabody Museum, 1871, p. 20), that this
perforation is present in thirty-one per cent. of some human remains
from ancient mounds in the Western United States, and in Florida. It
frequently occurs in the negro.) has collected the following evidence
on this head: Prof. Broca noticed the perforation in four and a half
per cent. of the arm-bones collected in the Cimetiere du Sud, at
Paris; and in the Grotto of Orrony, the contents of which are referred
to the Bronze period, as many as eight humeri out of thirty-two were
perforated; but this extraordinary proportion, he thinks, might be due
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