Congenital Fusion of the Lunate

Congenital fusion of the lunate [semilunar] bone with the triquetral [cuneiform] is an abnormality which has been considered to be rare, even in negroes, who have been regarded as specially subject (Shanks 1950). Smitham (1948) estimated its incidence in a series of West African natives to be one in seventeen (5’9 per cent), and if his experience is typical it is certainly much commoner in some negro peoples than has been supposed. It is a very widespread abnormality, which has been described in American negroes (Paterson 1893, Deny 1906, Dwight 1907, L#{246}nnerblad 1936, Alexander and Johnson 1941, Smitham 1948), in the Sudanese (Elliot Smith 1903, L#{246}nnerblad 1936), and even in Australian aboriginals (Smith 1907). The Bantu, with whom this paper is concerned, have this type of carpal fusion fairly frequently. They are a group of negro peoples who form a native population of southern Africa, to which they appear to have migrated from equatorial Africa. Their original habitat was probably the Nile Basin, which is believed to be the original home of all the negro races. The West African peoples, who migrated south of the Sahara Desert also from the Nile country, provided the ancestors of the American and West Indian negroes, and it is considered that even the Australian aboriginals can be traced back to the Nile, for the East Asiatic Papuo-Melanesians are a branch of the negroid division of mankind. It is, of course, to be expected that any abnormality which occurs in negro peoples would have a world-wide distribution. It is not claimed that fusion of the lunate and triquetral are peculiar to the negro races. It has been described in white persons by Curr (1946), by McConnell (1907) and by Hammond (1947), and in several patients whose race and colour were not mentioned by the reporters.*