Page:A descriptive catalogue of the Warren Anatomical Museum.djvu/170

 148 MORBID ANATOMY. Esq., a brother-in-law of his patient, Dr. Coon, Mayor of the city, and Dr. J. D. B. Stillman, all of San F.

The cranium arrived in this city, with the bar, in 1868, and have been most generously presented, by Dr. Harlow, to the Medical College.

On examination of the cranium, it is generally, though not always, possible to distinguish between the bones that are gone, as the result of the injury, and those that have crumbled away and been lost since the man's death; the smoothness of the edges determining this point for the most part. The whole of the small wing of the sphenoid bone upon the left side is gone, with a large portion of the large wing, and a large portion of the orbital process of the frontal bone ; leaving an opening in the base of the skull, 2 in. in length, 1 in. in width, posteriorly, and gradually and irregularly to a point anteriorly. This opening extends from the sphenoidal fissure to the situation of the frontal sinus; and its centre is an inch from the median line. The optic foramen, and the foramen are intact. Below the base of the skull the whole posterior portion of the upper maxillary bone is gone. The malar bone is uninjured; but it has been very forced outward, and the external surface inclines somewhat outward, from above downward. The lower jaw is also uninjured. The opening in the base above is continuous with a line of old and united fracture that extends through the supra-orbitary ridge, in the of the foramen, inclines toward, and then from the median line, and terminates in an extensive fracture that was caused by the bar as it came out through the top of the head. This fracture is situated in the left half of the frontal bone, but, inferiorly, it extends somewhat over the median line. In form it is about quadrilateral; and it measures 2½ x 1¾ in. Two large pieces of bone are seen to have been detached and upraised; the upper one having been separated at the coronal suture from the parietal bone, and being so closely united that the fracture does not show upon the outer surface. The lower piece shows the line of fracture all around. Owing to the loss of bone, two openings are left in the skull; one, that separates the