No abstract

ONE FIGUREConcerning the circumflex veins of the thigh, the relative infrequency of agreement between the text-book description and the condition seen in the cadaver has led to a reexamination of the mode of ending of these blood vessels. Special attention has been given to the comparison of conditions in the white and the American negro. The manner of termination of these veins has been compared also with the origins of the arteries they accompany.I n the text-books of anatomy the medial and lateral femoral circumflex veins are described as terminating in the deep femoral vein-a relation comparable to the origins of the medial and lateral femoral circumflex arteries from the deep femoral artery ( Cunningham, Gray, Poirier, and Quain). I n both Cunningham and Poirier, however, it is stated that not uncommonly the femoral vein is joined by the medial and lateral circumflex veins. Clear illustrations of the terminations of the medial and lateral femoral circumflex veins are relatively scarce, but in the atlases of Sobotta, Toldt, and Spalteholz the plates show plainly the terminations in the femoral vein. This mode of ending was described by Theile ( '43), and by Picqu6 and Pigache ( '09), who report that in the majority of cases studied by them the circumflex veins terminate in the femoral vein. These investigators also found that the ending of the veins is a t a level proximal to that of the origin of the corresponding circumflex arteries.

ONE FIGUREThe variance between the descriptions of the terminations of the medial and lateral circumflex veins of the thigh given in the textbooks of human anatomy, and the modes of termination found in student dissections at Washington University, led to the stucly of the conditions