The Sternum

The Costal Cartilages

These (Cartilagines costales) are bars of hyaline cartilage which continue the ribs. Those of the sternal ribs articulate with the sternum, while the remainder overlap and are attached to each other to form the costal arch (Arcus costalis).

The sternum or breast-bone is a median segmental bone which completes the skeleton of the thorax ventrally, and articulates with the cartilages of the sternal ribs laterally. It consists of six to eight bony segments (Sternebræ) connected by intervening cartilage in the young subject. Its form varies with that of the thorax in general and with the development of the clavicles in animals in which they are present. Its anterior extremity, the manubrium sterni or presternum, is specially affected by the latter factor, being broad and strong when the clavicles are well developed and articulate with it (as in man), relatively small and laterally compressed when they are absent (as in the horse) or rudimentary (as in the dog). The cartilages of the first pair of ribs articulate with it. The body or mesosternum (Corpus sterni) presents laterally, at the junction of the segments, concave facets (Incisuræ costales) for articulation with the cartilages of the sternal ribs. The posterior extremity or metasternum presents the xiphoid (or ensiform) cartilage (Processus xiphoideus); this is thin and plate-like, as in the horse and ox, or narrow and short, as in the pig and dog.

Development.—The cartilaginous sternum is formed by the fusion medially of two lateral bars which unite the ventral ends of the first eight or nine costal cartilages, and is primitively unsegmented. The manubrium ossifies from a single center, but the centers for the other segments appear to be primitively paired. The sternum never becomes completely ossified; details in regard to persisting cartilage will be given in the special descriptions. The layer of compact tissue is for the greater part very thin and the spongy substance is open-meshed and very vascular.