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 Body of sphenoid bone The body of the sphenoid bone, more or less cubical in shape, is hollowed out in its interior to form two large cavities, the sphenoidal sinuses, which are separated from each other by a septum. The superior surface of the body [Fig. 1] presents in front a prominent spine, the ethmoidal spine, for articulation with the cribriform plate of the ethmoid bone; behind this is a smooth surface slightly raised in the middle line, and grooved on either side for the olfactory lobes of the brain. This surface is bounded behind by a ridge, which forms