(4) _Saddle-shaped joints_ (_Articulus sellaris_), allowing the same
movements as the last with greater strength. The carpo-metacarpal
joint of the thumb is an example.
(5) _Ball and socket joints_ (_Enarthrosis_), allowing free movement
in any direction, as in the shoulder and hip.
(6) _Pivot-joint_ (_Trochoides_), allowing only rotation round a
longitudinal axis, as in the radio-ulnar joints.
_Embryology._
Joints are developed in the mesenchyme, or that part of the mesoderm
which is not concerned in the formation of the serous cavities. The
synarthroses may be looked upon merely as a delay in development,
because, as the embryonic tissue of the mesenchyme passes from a fibrous
to a bony state, the fibrous tissue may remain along a certain line and
so form a suture, or, when chondrification has preceded ossification,
the cartilage may remain at a certain place and so form a synchondrosis.
The diarthroses represent an arrest of development at an earlier stage,
for a part of the original embryonic tissue remains as a plate of round
cells, while the neighbouring two rods chondrify and ossify. This plate
may become converted into fibro-cartilage, in which case an
amphiarthrodial joint results, or it may become absorbed in the centre
to form a joint cavity, or, if this absorption occurs in two places, two
joint cavities with an intervening meniscus may result. Although,
ontogenetically, there is little doubt that menisci arise in the way
just mentioned, the teaching of comparative anatomy suggests that,
phylogenetically, they originate as an ingrowth from the capsule pushing
the synovial membrane in front of them. The subject will be returned to
when the comparative anatomy of the individual joints is reviewed. In
the human foetus the joint cavities are all formed by the tenth week of
intra-uterine life.
ANATOMY
_Joints of the Axial Skeleton._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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