Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c7.s2.t4.23

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the pubes (Figs. 4, 20). As this bone lies in the median line of the skeleton it is not subject to duplication by the homological principle, but (like the penis and vulva to which it gives attachment) it is counted, in the Indian anatomical system, as a single bone. In fact, it corresponds, in the lower part of the body, to the breast-bone or sternum, in the upper part; and thus the ischio-pubic arch (*viṭapa*, § 28, footnote on p. 72), connecting the pubic arch with the ischium, is the homologue of the clavicular arch (*kakṣa-dhara*, clavicle), connecting the sternum with the shoulder. The pubic arch, of course, does not really consist of a single bone, but is made up of two bones, the ossa pubis, which form the two sides of the arch, and which are bound at the top of the arch by means of a cartilaginous disk forming the symphysis pubis. But it must be remembered that for the Indian anatomist cartilage is bone (§ 30), and from his point of view he was justified in regarding the whole arch as composed of a single bone. We must also remember that the mode of counting the bones of the skeleton is more or less arbitrary at all times. Modern anatomy counts the ilium and ischium as two separate bones, though, as a matter of fact, they are ankylosed in the adult: it does so as a matter of scientific convenience, and is justified in doing so by the circumstance that they are really separate in early life. Indian anatomists, on the other hand, having regard to the adult condition, count the ilium and ischium as constituting a single bone.