RECORD OF MEDICAL SCIENCE.
ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY.
Comparative, size and shape of the Thyroid Foramen in the Male and
Female Innominatum. Dr. Neill called the attention of the Fellows
of the College to the comparative size and shape of the Thyroid Fora-
men in the Male and Female Innominatum.
He •believed that many teachers of Anatomy and of Obstetrics were
in error upon this subject, while others had failed to point out the
difference between the male and female pelvis in this respect; that this
was the case especially in this city, and perhaps in this country gene-
rally.
He had learned that Dr. Wistar and Dr. James taught that in the
female the foramen was oval, and that in the male it was triangular,
although there was no statement upon the subject in the old edition of
Wistar’s Anatomy which he had examined, nor in the more recent
edition known as Pancoast’s Wistar. Dr. Horner also stated in his
work, that “ in the male it is triangular, in the female, rather oval.”
On the other hand, Meckel, Cloquet, Cruveilhier, Harrison and Quain
and Sharpey make a statement precisely the reverse of this.
The lecturers upon obstetrics with whom he had conversed, either
teach the former view, or are silent upon the subject. Denman, Baude-
loque, and Maygrier say nothing. Neither do Monroe or Cheselden,
both high authority on the bones, nor Winslow, Bell, Bartholin, &c.
Soemmerring says “ the foramen is elliptical in children, and trian-
gular in adults.” Wilson and Von Behr say it is triangular in women.
In order to satisfy his own mind on the subject, Dr. Neill had, up
to this period, examined thirty-two skeletons, and the result was so
contrary to the view which he, and perhaps most of the Fellows had
been taught, that he had thought it worth while to prepare a chart,
exhibiting diagrams of the male innominata in one column, and those
of the female in another, to show at a glance, the distinctive difference.
H& believed from an inspection of this, every one would be convinced
that the foramen in the male is oval, while in the female it is triangular.
It will also be observed that the male foramen is longer and narrower,
and that the line representing the long axis is more vertical, and nearly
parallel to the rami of the pubes and ischium ; whereas, in the female
the foramen is not only smaller and triangular, but that the apex of the
triangle is downward, that its internal side is nearly parallel to the
rami of the ischium and pubes; and that the base of the triangle is
proportional to the chord of the arch of the pubes.
He remarked that the establishment of this fact, by investigation or
by authority, would not interest the Fellows of the College in a practical
point of view, its only value consisting in its affording another mark of
distinction between the male and female skeletons.
Trans. Col. Phys. Phil.