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An Improved Form of Craniometer for the Segmentation of the Transverse, Vertical, and Antero-Posterior Diameters of the Cranium

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2014

David Hepburn
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
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Extract

Introduction.—All craniologists are familiar with the form of craniometer or calliper-compasses at present employed for the purpose of ascertaining the various diameters of the cranial box, and they know that these measurements represent certain facts in connection with the breadth, height, and length of the skull as applicable to a number of accepted fixed points upon the surface of the cranium. In effect these diameters are the direct lengths between two points upon an arched surface, i.e., they are the chords of certain arcs, and by the use of the measuring tape we may ascertain the relative proportions between the arc and the chord which subtends it. When several bones contribute to the formation of the arc we may readily determine the relative proportions between each section of the arc ⟨or the chord of each section⟩ and the chord of the entire arc, but it is a much more difficult matter to segment the chord of the entire arc in terms of perpendiculars prolonged to it from definite points upon the arc. For example, by callipers we obtain the glabello-occipital length or chord of the great longitudinal arc, and by measuring tape we may ascertain the frontal, parietal, and supra-inial sections of this arc, but we do not thereby segment the chord of the arc by perpendiculars prolonged to it from the bregma and the lambda. Again, such important transverse diameters of the skull as the minimum frontal, Stephanic, greatest parieto-squamous, and asterionic, are recorded without reference to their proportions on opposite sides of the mesial plane, while the almost constant visible asymmetry of the skull shows that the mesial plane does not necessarily bisect these diameters.

Type
Proceedings
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1899

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References

page 602 note * Turner, , Chall. Rep., “Human Crania,” Part xxix., 1884Google Scholar.

page 602 note † Cleland, , “An Inquiry into the Variations of the Human Skull, particularly in the Antero-Posterior Direction,” Phil. Trans., 1870, vol. clx. pp. 117175CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 603 note 1 This instrument is made solely by Mr A. H. Baird, Scientific Instrument Maker, Lothian Street, Edinburgh.

page 611 note * For information with regard to the depth of the frontal sinuses, I await the appearance of an extremely elaborate paper which is now in course of preparation by Dr Logan Turner

page 613 note * Cleland, loc. cit.