Growth of Long-bones of Human Fetus as Illustrated by the Tibia.

Abstract

The growth in length of the human tibia in the latter part of prenatal life has been studied quantitatively from observations, made chiefly by Corrado1 and by Tamassia,2 on a series of 152 fetuses. The data include the total body-length, the total length of the tibia, the length of the tibial diaphysis, and the combined lengths of the superior and inferior (cartilagenous) tibial epiphyses. Regression formulae have been computed for certain relationships between these values and are given, with other data, in Table I. Fig. 1 shows the distributions of these observations and their regressive lines.These formulae indicate that, in the period under consideration, the growth in length of the tibia and the lineal growth of its various parts are directly proportional to the growth in total or crown-heel length. The empirical formulae for the total length of the tibia and for the length of the tibial diaphysis, with respect to total body-length, are characterized by negative second constants, as are the various e...