Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c7.s2.t3.18

c7.s2.t3.18

counting, there would strictly be only sixty-eight bones (or thirty-four on either side), because in reality there exist only ten tubercles on either side, the two lowest, or ‘floating’, ribs (the eleventh and twelfth) having no tubercles. But the Indian anatomists, owing to their usual fancy for symmetry (§ 44), count twelve tubercles, just as they count fifteen joints in the fingers and toes.