ponding part of the opposite side; the difference in breadth is chiefly confined to the basin-like part of the cavity. The symphysis pubis is broader in the female, and the angle underneath it is much more obtuse, the space between the descending rami of the pubes is consequently larger. The sacrum is broader, less curved, and turned more backwards; this also adds to the capacity of the cavity. The os coccygis is more moveable, and much less bent forwards so that it does not project so much into the pelvis. The tuberosities of the ischia are farther distant from each other, and from the os coccygis; and as these three points are farther asunder, the notches between them are consequently wider, and there is of course a much greater space between the os coccygis and pubes; and lastly the whole pelvis is less massy, but more capacious and shallow in the female structure.[1] There are, moreover, some striking peculiarities to be discovered in the structure of the thorax, which if not equally satisfactory with that derived from a comparison of the pelvis, deserve serious attention. The whole thorax is shorter in the female, larger above as far as the fourth rib, narrower below; more moveable, less conical; more convex in front; more distant from the pelvis, the interval between the last rib, and the os innominatum being greater; less prominent anteriorly, so that
- ↑ In a lecture on "Mathematical Beauty," delivered by Professor Camper in the Academy of Drawing at Amsterdam, this celebrated physiologist has shewn that in tracing the figures of the body of the male and female in two imaginary ellipses of equal dimensions, a portion of the pelvis of the latter would be out of the ellipse, and her shoulders within it; whereas in the former, the shoulders would project beyond the limits of the figure, and his pelvis, on the contrary, would be entirely enclosed within it.
