vations have been reviewed and stated in a different relation,
by Professer Weber, of Bonn.* Vrolik seems to have •been
led to these researches by tbe remark that the shape ,of the
pelvis must have some influence, -greateror less, on the corn-
formation of the foetus. He endeavoured to discover what
■peculiarities exist in the shape of the - pelvis characteristic of
different nations, by examining the form displayed by this
part of the skeleton in a male and female Negro, in a female
of the Hottentot or Bushman race, a male and female Ja vanese
and in a Mestizo, or a person of mixed breed,> hav-%
ing one parent -a Mulatto, and the other a white man or
woman.
Vrolik has remarked that the differences between the
pelvis of male and female Europeans are very considerable,
but by no means so striking and well marked ias^thpse which
are perceived when we compare the male and female of the
Negro race. “ The pelvis of the male ,.Negro,” he, says, in
the “strength and density of its substance, and of the/bones
which compose it, resembles the pelvis of, a wild beast, while-
on the contrary, the pelvis of .the - fern ale. in .thessame race
combines, -lightness of substance, and delicacy o f form and
structure. Yet the pelyis of the female Negro^ according to
the .same writer, though of light and delicate form when
compared with that of the,male,,is in all the examples) with
which he is acquainted, entirely destjtute.of that transparent
portion dm which in the European female pel vis thg bony
plates are closely united. - He has found this transparency
in the pelvis .only in one old Negro female, in which however
the part in question, when held up to the light, yet appeared
not entirely destitute of diploe intervening between the bony
plates. But though this characteristic of the race is observed
in the female as well as in the male, yet such is the -neatness
and roundness of form in the pelvis of the'former, that nobody
on a first view would suppose it to belong to the same
nation as the corresponding bones in the. skeleton of the male
-J- Die Lehre von den Ur—und Racenformen der Schaedel und Becken des
Menschen, von Dr. M. I. Weher, Professor der vergleichenden Anatomie, Zu Bonn,
u. s. w. Düsseldorf, 1830.
Negro. Delicate, however, as is the form of the pelvis in the
female, it is^diificult, as Vrolik thinks, to separate from it
the idea of degradation in type, and approach towards the
form o f the lower animals. 4 This character is imparted by
the vertical direction of the ossa ilii; the elevation of the ilia
at the posterior and upper tuberosities; the greater proximity
^f the anterior and upper' spines; the smaller breadth of the
s a c r umt h e smaller-extent of the haunches; the, smaller
distance .from the upper edge, of the articulation of the pelvis,
and the'projection bf the sacrum, or the shortness of the
conjugate diameter1; the smallness of the transverse diameters
at the spine's and tuberosities ‘of:'the.ischium, and the'lengthened
form which the'pelvis derives* from these peculiarities.
All" »these ^characters*,' as he-says,* rebal to ~our minds the conformation
o f the pelvis in the- simiae. The elongated’ shape
o f’the-' pelvis in the Negress is, in short, the character on
which this approximation dependsi^llThemssa ilii assume a
peculiar configuration. The summit of the inclined plane;
which in the European isi-kr the middle of the crest of the
bonesmf the ilium, between the anterior and upper spine and
the posterior and-upper tuberosity, is situated in the Negress
immediately abOvC the posterior artd upper tuberosity; being
thus as» remote as possible from its^sithiation in'tbe European.
The anterior upper spines are placed lower in relation to thé
cotyloid'cavities, and are also less prominent. The anterior
and lowér spines are nearer to the edge of the cotyloid cavity
than in- thèUEuropean pelvis,- ; in which a greater distance is
here to be observed*. The length of the antero-posterior diameter
or of the conjugata, a t the upper aperture of the lesser
pelvis, is very great in comparison with that of the transverse
diameter. *
On the inner surface of the lesser pelvis the ischiadic spines
are found to be more nearly together, which must .not be
considered as merely the consequence of the smaller breadth
of the pelvis; since at the inferior^* opening’ we scarcely discover
the space"“ to be narrower than in the European, the
ischiadic tuberosities being scarcely less widely separated.
The pelvis is here as above, only longer at its anterior part;