[Architecture of the human skull cap in the region of the pars bregmatica suturae sagittalis. II. Sex characteristics].

There has previously been no treatise on the inner architecture of the human cranial vault other than those dealing with common "age changes". Such a treatise ought to refer to a particular segment of the vault demonstrate the peculiar structure according to age in both sexes, and also take into consideration their normal variability as presupposition for using the results in estimating the age of prehistoric skeletal material. With the help of thin sections across the sagittal suture and the adjoining cranial vault 10 mm behind the bregma findings about the specific structure as to age and sex and their expected variability are demonstrated by more than 200 cases taken from the recent population. According to the results in hand there exists a contradiction to the opinions hitherto existing about a distinct age dependence in the bone structure and distinct sex differences in the findings of the structures of the Ist order. Though data about changes in the anatomical construction of the human cranial vault during the ontogenesis are to be correctly obtained only with the help of longitudinal investigation, the crosssectional investigation produced only differences between the age classes. Real differences were not to be found, but there are to be derived possible tendencies of development for the calvarial thickness, for the relation between the compact bone (tabula externa, tabula interna) and the porous bone (diploë), of the porosity in the diploë and the obliteration of the suture in the course of increasing age. No significant sex differences were found but there are sex peculiarities or at least inclinations to it. The use of the findings taken from the cross-sectional aspect of the cranial vault in order to estimate the age at death and the sex as well as indications of possible individual peculiarities, at present ead to a sufficiently reliable diagnosis only within a polysymptomatical practice.