Human osteology. Text by Tim. D. White, illustrations by Pieter Folkens. Academic press, 1991. Price...
2
International ]olrrnal of Osteoarrhneology, Vol. 2: 99-700 (19921 Book Review HUMAN OSTEOLOGY Text by Tim. D. White, illustrations by Pieter Folkens. Academic Press, 1991. Price E42.50/$59.95 Bones are central to the lives of many students and professional scientists. Orthopaedic surgeons, endocrinologists, forensic scientists, archaeologists and physical anthropologists, all have their own textbooks about bone or bones and they all have their own approaches to studying them. Human osteology was written as a textbook for ‘a one-semester college course on human osteology’. For some students an introductory course will be their only experience of bones. For others, however, it may be the beginning of a career in archaeology or physical anthropology and it is these students who will gain most from the broad-based introduction this new book offers. The book has a daunting list of contents. It contains 23 chapters and an appendix and is 455 pages long. Broadly, it can be divided into three sections for descriptive purposes, although these are of my own making. In the first section an introductory chapter leads on to a chapter devoted to‘Bone Biology’, which includes topics such as variation in bone morphology, the molecular structure of bone, histology, meta- bolism, growth and repair of bone. This is followed by a chapter on anatomical terminology. The list of contents for this first section is awesome, but in fact each heading in the contents refers to little more than a paragraph of text and this section is definitely for beginners. We are reminded, for example, in the legend to figure 2.5 that ’In the assessment of external bone morphology, neither the soft tissue matrix nor the internal structure should be for- gotten’. Well, in the next section of the book there could only ever be scant reference to them. Chapters 4-13 make up the bulk of the book and form a central section. They deal with the anatomy of the bones of the body in considerable detail. Very few anatomy textbooks use photographs to illus- trate bones, since drawings are thought to come across more clearly, but the most outstanding feature of this book is the photography. When other anatomy atlases have used photographs they have used colour photography mostly, but in this book all the illustrations are in black and white and the result is excellent. The majority of the photo- graphs are stunning life-size plates of bones. Crests and grooves, striae and foramina are easily identified on every bone. A good introduction to the skull leads into an exhaustive list of osteometric points, some of which I confess to never having heard of, but, alas, the one I had been hunting for (sellion) is not listed. Also, a few standard measure- ments and indices are described for the skull in Chapter 15, on the ‘Analysis of skeletal remains’, but none is listed for the postcranial skeleton. In this sense the book is not a user-manual. After the introductory account of the skull as a whole, each separate bone is described in detail. At this point the method of labelling changes and each of the bones described subsequently is keyed with letters (a - y in one case!). These are overlayed on the photographs with clear white lines that identify each anatomical feature. This is an irritating way to label the photographs and sometimes the letter refering to a bony landmark is three pages away from the plate. I have no doubt, however, that this keeps the photo- graphs as neat and clean as possible and also keeps the cost of the book down. Besides helpful notes on each anatomical feature, there are brief sections on the growth of each bone, possible confusing issues when dealing with fragmented bones, and a section on siding left and right. This section on the bones of the skull is one of the book‘s strongest points. Chapter 5 on the dentition is a good introductory guide to the morphology of the deciduous and permanent teeth. Again the photographs are excellent and the detail superb, but there is an unreal chalky quality to the teeth, as if they have been dusted heavily or even subjected to the same ’degreasing’ procedure as the bones of the skeleton. Tooth development and calcification stages are briefly covered in Chapter 16 (which deals with age, sex, stature and ancestry in 25 The bones of the postcranial skeleton are dealt with in the same methodical manner and again each bone is represented life-size with long bones divided into proximal and distal portions viewed side by side. There is no section that summarizes the differences between cervical, thoracic and lumbar vertebrae clearly. There are no outlines of muscle or tendon attachments superimposed on the photographs of the bones, but there are cunning little charts that indicate pages). 1047-482x/921010099-02$05.00 @ 1992 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
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Transcript of Human osteology. Text by Tim. D. White, illustrations by Pieter Folkens. Academic press, 1991. Price...
International ]olrrnal of Osteoarrhneology, Vol. 2: 99-700 (19921
Book Review
HUMAN OSTEOLOGY
Text by Tim. D. White, illustrations by Pieter Folkens. Academic Press, 1991. Price E42.50/$59.95
Bones are central to the lives of many students and professional scientists. Orthopaedic surgeons, endocrinologists, forensic scientists, archaeologists and physical anthropologists, all have their own textbooks about bone or bones and they all have their own approaches to studying them. Human osteology was written as a textbook for ‘a one-semester college course on human osteology’. For some students an introductory course will be their only experience of bones. For others, however, it may be the beginning of a career in archaeology or physical anthropology and it is these students who will gain most from the broad-based introduction this new book offers.
The book has a daunting list of contents. It contains 23 chapters and an appendix and is 455 pages long. Broadly, it can be divided into three sections for descriptive purposes, although these are of my own making. In the first section an introductory chapter leads on to a chapter devoted to‘Bone Biology’, which includes topics such as variation in bone morphology, the molecular structure of bone, histology, meta- bolism, growth and repair of bone. This is followed by a chapter on anatomical terminology. The list of contents for this first section is awesome, but in fact each heading in the contents refers to little more than a paragraph of text and this section is definitely for beginners. We are reminded, for example, in the legend to figure 2.5 that ’In the assessment of external bone morphology, neither the soft tissue matrix nor the internal structure should be for- gotten’. Well, in the next section of the book there could only ever be scant reference to them.
Chapters 4-13 make up the bulk of the book and form a central section. They deal with the anatomy of the bones of the body in considerable detail. Very few anatomy textbooks use photographs to illus- trate bones, since drawings are thought to come across more clearly, but the most outstanding feature of this book is the photography. When other anatomy atlases have used photographs they have used colour photography mostly, but in this book all the illustrations are in black and white and
the result is excellent. The majority of the photo- graphs are stunning life-size plates of bones. Crests and grooves, striae and foramina are easily identified on every bone. A good introduction to the skull leads into an exhaustive list of osteometric points, some of which I confess to never having heard of, but, alas, the one I had been hunting for (sellion) is not listed. Also, a few standard measure- ments and indices are described for the skull in Chapter 15, on the ‘Analysis of skeletal remains’, but none is listed for the postcranial skeleton. In this sense the book is not a user-manual.
After the introductory account of the skull as a whole, each separate bone is described in detail. At this point the method of labelling changes and each of the bones described subsequently is keyed with letters (a - y in one case!). These are overlayed on the photographs with clear white lines that identify each anatomical feature. This is an irritating way to label the photographs and sometimes the letter refering to a bony landmark is three pages away from the plate. I have no doubt, however, that this keeps the photo- graphs as neat and clean as possible and also keeps the cost of the book down. Besides helpful notes on each anatomical feature, there are brief sections on the growth of each bone, possible confusing issues when dealing with fragmented bones, and a section on siding left and right. This section on the bones of the skull is one of the book‘s strongest points. Chapter 5 on the dentition is a good introductory guide to the morphology of the deciduous and permanent teeth. Again the photographs are excellent and the detail superb, but there is an unreal chalky quality to the teeth, as if they have been dusted heavily or even subjected to the same ’degreasing’ procedure as the bones of the skeleton. Tooth development and calcification stages are briefly covered in Chapter 16 (which deals with age, sex, stature and ancestry in 25
The bones of the postcranial skeleton are dealt with in the same methodical manner and again each bone is represented life-size with long bones divided into proximal and distal portions viewed side by side. There is no section that summarizes the differences between cervical, thoracic and lumbar vertebrae clearly. There are no outlines of muscle or tendon attachments superimposed on the photographs of the bones, but there are cunning little charts that indicate
pages).
1047-482x/921010099-02$05.00 @ 1992 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
100 Book Review
which bones of the wrist, foot (and head) articulate with each other for those who need to know. Many of the notes relating to the photographs give good concise accounts of the soft tissue structures that are associated with bony features. This is important in a reference text, but I fear much of this detail would be lost on students who have never studied anatomy. The book is a stark contrast to Fraser’s ‘Osteology of the human skeleton’, which hinged on soft tissue interaction and relations (in colour) throughout. A good point about this book is the visual demon- stration of variation in several bones, including the femur, clavicle, talus and tibia in 10 or more males and females or in mixed samples, but the book is an introduction and there are no metrical data on any bone or tooth. The book is nevertheless a consider- able source of literature on aspects of bone mor- phology. Many chapters have a list of suggested further reading and there is a comprehensive biblio- graphy with over 200 references. The index also is good.
Chapters 14-22 make up the last section of the book and cover a vast number of subjects. Chapters 14-19 include preparation, curation, analysis and sexing of skeletal material, non-metric variation, pathology, post-mortem modification, and re- constructions of population biology. Again these are little more than introductory paragraphs about each topic. This is not the book of choice for information about the juvenile skeleton or for assessing age of skeletal material. Neither is it a book for those interested in skeletal pathology or diagenesis, and it is unfortunate that non-metric variation and pathology are lumped into one chapter. None the less, it must be
said that for a beginner, the book provides a wide overview of these subjects, which is after all what it was designed to do. The last four chapters of the book describe a palaeontological case study focusing on the excavation of Olduvai hominid 62 in Tanzania, an archaeological case study describing the analysis of the Anasazi remains from Cottonwood Canyon, forensic case study about a ’disappearance’ in Cleve- land and a very pertinent chapter about ethics in osteology that deals with issues such as reburial. I enjoyed these last four chapters greatly, especially the way they tie together so many aspects of human osteology.
Students and professionals favour a variety of books on osteology that include user-manuals, such as H u m a n Osteology; a Laboratoryand Field M a n u a l by W.M. Bass (19871, and introductory texts, such as Digging up Bones by D.R. Brothwell (1981), as well as more specialized volumes for serious workers, which include Gray’s A n a t o m y , (Chapman Hall) Identification of Pathological Conditions in H u m a n Skeletal Remains by D.J. Ortner and W.G. Putschar (1981) and Reconstruction of Life f rom the Skeleton by M.I. Iscan and K.A.R. Kennedy (1989). I doubt that White and Folkens (1991) will come to replace any of these books although it does form the framework for a very comprehensive introductory course in human osteology for those who wish to follow its prescription, and it will be an invaluable source of reference for anatomical facts about bones for professionals who do not have a copy of Gray’s and who prefer photographs to drawings.
Christopher Dean University College London
