The lumbar curve in man and the apes : with an account of the topographical anatomy of the chimpanzee, orang-utan, and gibbon / by D.J. Cunningham.

  • Cunningham, D. J. (Daniel John), 1850-1909.
Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The lumbar curve in man and the apes : with an account of the topographical anatomy of the chimpanzee, orang-utan, and gibbon / by D.J. Cunningham. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    right to such a distinction, and consider that he shares it with certain of the anthropoid apes. The observations which I have made in this direc- tion tend to minimize the importance of the lumbar curve as a distinctive character of any special group. Not only do the higher apes possess this curve, but so also do the majority of the lower apes; even some of the quadrupeds, under certain conditions, may show traces of it. In man and the Chimpanzee the quality of the curve is identical; the only difference is in the extent of the curvature and in its period of development. But further investigations which I have made upon several of the low races (althougli necessarily of a very imperfect character from the want of fresh spines) would seem to indicate that the curve is not stamped upon the vertebral column of, say, the Andaman, Australian, or Negro, so firmly as it is stamped upon the column of the European. I do not mean to infer that the degree of curvature is less in these races ; but whereas in the European the bodies of the vertebrae are more or less moulded in adaptation to the curve, in the low races there is not a trace of this. In prosecuting this inquiry into the conditions of the lumbar curve I have approached the question from two different points of view. In the first place I have examined the form-adaptations which are presented by the bodies of the vertebrae concerned; and in the second place I have endeavoured to determine the quality and the degree of the curve in fresli spines. The first part of this Memoir, therefore, is divided into two sections, corresponding to the results obtained in each of these fields. Section I. ADAPTATION OF THE VERTEBEAL BODIES WITH REFERENCE TO THE LUMBAR CURVE. This section includes the results obtained by an extended series of measurements of the bodies of the lower five true vertebrae in Europeans, five of the lower races of man, the anthropoid apes, and some of the lower apes of the Old World. EurojDean vertebrae have been measured by various anatomists, but always on a very limited scale. Thus in the works of the