Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c7.s3.t3.2

c7.s3.t3.2

² The brain-case or cranium is a hemispheroidal, oval box, made up of eight bones, namely the frontal, the two parietal, the two temporal, the occipital, the sphenoid and the ethmoid (Figs. 25, 26). Nearly the whole of it, viz. the entire vault and the larger portion of the base, is externally visible: the remainder of the latter lies internally within the skull. The externally visible portion of the cranium comprises six bones, the frontal, the two temporal, the two parietal, and the occipital. The interior, invisible portion comprises two bones, the sphenoid and the ethmoid. These two interior bones, including the small portion of the sphenoid, which shows externally by the side of the frontal (Fig. 25), were not known to the Indian anatomists. As pointed out in § 45, cl. 3, their method of dissection would not enable them to discover them; and so far as the two cranial surfaces of the sphenoid bone (Fig. 32) are concerned, they do not seem to have recognized their existence as separate from the frontal bone and as belonging to the sphenoid. In all probability