Abstract
SKELETAL archetypes, and “theories of the skull,” have of late years gone much out of fashion. The view which made each man a potential Briareus as to limbs, seems itself to be considered as no longer having a leg to stand upon. The fortress of the “Petrosal” has long been carried by assault, and is peaceably and securely occupied; and although we have had lately a brilliant passage of arms apropos of the “auditory ossicles” from which the unlucky Sauropsida retired with broken “hammers” and diminished “anvils;” yet the once widespread interest in skeletal controversies seems to have long subsided. The old war-cries are no longer heard, the question “Is the post-frontal a parapophysis?” falls on indifferent or averted ears, and we fear that even not a few of our anatomists call into daily functional activity a mandible, to the true nature and homologies of which they are comparatively indifferent.
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MIVART, S. The Vertebrate Skeleton. Nature 2, 291–292 (1870). https://doi.org/10.1038/002291a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/002291a0