It is well known that in man the biceps is inserted into the tuberosity
of the radius by means of a flattened round tendon. This tendon,
however, opposite the bend of the elbow, gives off a broad expansion,
which passes into the fascia of the forearm, and is termed _Aponeurosis
bicipitis_. In the gorilla this aponeurosis is carried on as strong
fibrous bundles of the fascia of the forearm into the palmar fascia. In
the gibbon the short head of the muscle does not always start from the
lesser tuberosity of the humerus, nor from the tendon of the pectoralis
major (Huxley), but sometimes from the edge of the lesser tuberosity,
which is here connected with the _latissimus dorsi_, as well as with
the sub-scapularis, the brachialis anticus, which is more to the side,
and with the triceps. In the gibbon, as Bischoff justly observes, the
supinator longus only reaches as far as the centre of the radius,
instead of extending to the styloid process of that bone, as it does in
other anthropoids, and in man.
The palmaris longus is wanting in the gorilla, but not in other
anthropoids. The long flexor muscles of the fingers and the lumbricales
resemble those of man (Figs. 51, 52). The flexor longus pollicis is
absent in the gorilla. Duvernoy considers that it is replaced by a
tendon of the long flexor of the fore-finger, but I have been unable
to verify the existence of this tendon. The same muscle is also absent
in the chimpanzee and the orang, but it may be traced in _Hylobates
albimanus_. Chapman states that in the gorilla the pronator radii teres
only sends forth one head,[71] but I have found it to be bicipital
in animals of this species. The lower or hinder head issues, as in
man, from the coronoid process of the ulna. Both in the gorilla and in
the chimpanzee it extends far in a downwards direction on the radius
(Fig. 52). The flexor carpi radialis starts in the chimpanzee with one
head from the inner condyle of the humerus, and with the other from
the radius. Bischoff describes the structure of the long abductor of
the thumb in the orang, the baboon, the _pithecia_, and the _hapale_
as resembling that of man. But in the gorilla, the chimpanzee, and
the macaca the tendon divides into two parts. Nor does one tendon
belong, as in man, to a short extensor of the thumb, but the latter is
wholly absent, and the division of the tendon only implies a continued
division of the attachment to the trapezium, as well as to the
metacarpal bones of the thumb. This division of the tendon also occurs
in the gorilla, which likewise possesses a short extensor of the thumb.
In this point, again, apes display a greater likeness to one another
than to man.
[Illustration:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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