One hundred and twelve nasal polyps received along with full history from three different hospitals of Kanyakumari district of Tamil Nadu during the period 1983-1987 were found positive for rhinosporidiosis on histopathological examination. Among the four taluks (countries) the majority of the cases (41.1 per cent) came from Agastheeswaram, followed by Kalkulam (28.6 per cent), Thovalai (17.0 per cent) and Vilavancode (13.3 per cent). The 11-20 years age group found to be highly susceptible (60 per cent). There was no sex prepondence in contracting the disease as the cases were evenly distributed between both sexes. These findings exhibited the endemic nature of the disease in Kanyakumari district. Unreported cases to an extent of 9 to 40 per cent were encountered during the ENT disease diagnostic camps conducted in nine high incidence villages. Further 8 more cases were detected in addition to cases attended in the hospitals and ENT camps when a complete enumeration of cases was undertaken in Pallam village. Thus the actual number of cases found in the district need a stratified random sampling.

The purpose of this preliminary study was twofold: (1) to examine the morphology of the proximal ulna by way of visual assessment (i.e., morphoscopic analysis) in order to gauge any variability between the sexes, adult ages and populations (African American and European American) and (2) to explore the possibility of utilizing a morphoscopic method in mass grave or mass disaster field settings where quantitative approaches would be prohibitive due to time and equipment constraints. The proximal ulna is an area of interest because it forms the elbow joint along with the proximal radius and distal humerus. And, whereas joints are areas of the skeleton that show sexual dimorphism as well as age-related and or biomechanical changes such as osteoarthritis, it was hypothesized that shape differences exist between females and males, and young, middle and older adult age groups, though perhaps not between populations (i.e., African American and European American), since most population differences are found in the skull and femur. This study was undertaken as well because of the paucity of information on ulnar variation of this nature in the published literature. In this study, proximal ulnar morphology was largely characterized by a visual evaluation of torsion. A method was developed to assess this torsion, and the morphological data were collected for right and left ulnae from 64 individuals (n=128), aged 22 to 101 years, from the Robert J. Terry Skeletal Collection, Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History. Gross observations of raw data and results of certain statistical tests indicated that proximal ulnar morphology varied by sex and population; but, no clear distinctions among adult age groups could be determined. Because of small sample sizes, no definitive conclusions were drawn. Further testing on larger sample sizes is recommended. This study contributes novel information about proximal ulnar morphological variation, which, to date, has received little attention in osteological research.