XIV.—A Revised Description of the Dorsal Interosseous Muscles of the Human Hand, with Suggestions for a New Nomenclature of the Palmar Interosseous Muscles and some Observations on the Corresponding Muscles in the Anthropoid Apes

Extract

The main features of the scope of this paper are indicated by its title, from which it will be seen that I do not regard the current descriptions, which appear in textbooks of human anatomy, as providing an adequate conception either of the attachments or of the functions of the muscles at present named “Dorsal and Palmar Interosseous.” It may seem strange, in connection with such an exact (and, according to some, exhausted) science as human anatomy, that it should be possible to doubt the accuracy of modern text-books concerning such an apparently elementary consideration as the description of a group of muscles in the human hand; but we must bear in mind, first, the ease with which a statement is handed on from author to author without renewed investigation, if only, in the first instance, it has been stamped with the approval of a recognised authority, and second, that these descriptions were originally constructed with little or no reference to the facts of comparative anatomy. It is only by a series of careful comparisons that we can arrive at a proper understanding of the homologies of individual muscles or of groups of muscles in the human subject.