Bone vessels and cartilage. In the human body at birth, there are over 270 bones, but many of these fuse together during development, leaving a total of 206 separate bones in the adult, not counting numerous small sesamoid bones. The largest bone in the body is the femur or thigh-bone, and the smallest is the stapes in the middle ear. The Greek word for bone is ὀστέον ("osteon"), hence the many terms that use it as a prefix – such as osteopathy. Bone is not uniformly solid, but consists of a flexible matrix (about 30%) and bound minerals (about 70%) which
Body of sphenoid bone groove, in the angle between the body and greater wing, is a ridge of bone, called the sphenoidal lingula. The posterior surface, quadrilateral in form [Fig. 3], is joined, during infancy and adolescence, to the basilar part of the occipital bone by a plate of cartilage. Between the eighteenth and twenty-fifth years this becomes ossified, ossification commencing above and extending downward. The anterior surface of the body [Fig. 2] presents, in the middle line, a vertical crest, the sphenoidal crest, which articulates with the perpendicular plate of the ethmoid, and forms part of the nasal septum. On either side of