and the flexor longus hallucis from within outward. Their tendons all pass into the sole, that of the flexor longus digitorum being inserted into the terminal phalanges of the four outer toes, the flexor longus hallucis into the terminal phalanx of the big toe, while the tibialis posticus sends expansions to most of the tarsal bones. The nerve supply of this group is the posterior tibial. On the dorsum of the foot is the extensor brevis digitorum (fig. 11). which helps to extend the four inner toes, while in the sole are four layers of short muscles, the most superficial of which consists of the abductor hallucis, the flexor brevis digitorum, and the abductor minimi digiti, the names of which indicate their attachments. The second layer is formed by muscles which are attached to the flexor longus digitorum tendon; they are the accessorius, running forward to the tendon from the lower surface of the calcaneum, and the four lumbricales, which rise from the tendon after it has split for the four toes and pass between the toes to be inserted into the tendons of the extensor longus digitorum on the dorsum. The third layer comprises the flexor brevis hallucis, adductor obliquus and adductor transversus hallucis and the flexor brevis minimi digiti. The fourth layer contains the three plantar and four dorsal interosseous muscles, rising from the metatarsal bones and inserted into the proximal phalanges and extensor tendons in such a way that the plantar muscles draw the toes towards the line of the second toe while the dorsal draw them away from that line. Of these sole muscles the flexor brevis digitorum, flexor brevis hallucis, abductor hallucis and the innermost lumbrical are supplied by the internal plantar nerve, while all the rest are supplied by the external plantar.
 |
| From A. M. Paterson, Cunningham’s Text Book of Anatomy. |
Fig. 11.—Muscles of the Front of the Right Leg and Dorsum of the Foot. |
Embryology.
The development of the muscular system is partly known from the results of direct observation, and partly inferred from the study of the part of the nervous system whence the innervation is derived. The unstriped muscle is formed from the mesenchyme cells of the somatic and splanchnic layers of the mesoderm (see Embryology), but never, as far as we know, from the mesodermic somites. The heart muscle is also developed from mesenchymal cells, though the changes producing its feebly striped fibres are more complicated. The skeletal or real striped muscles are derived either from the mesodermic somites or from the branchial arches. As the mesodermic somites are placed on each side of the neural canal in the early embryo, it is obvious that the greater part of the trunk musculature spreads gradually round the body from the dorsal to the ventral side and consists of a series of plates called myotomes (fig. 12). The muscle fibres in these plates run in the long axis of the embryo, and are at first separated from those of the two neighbouring plates by thin fibrous intervals called myocommata.
 |
| From A. M. Paterson, Cunningham’s Text Book of Anatomy. |
Fig. 12.—Scheme to Illustrate the Disposition of the Myotomes in the Embryo in Relation to the Head, Trunk and Limbs. |
| A, B, C, First three cephalic myotomes. |
| N, 1, 2, 3, 4, Last persisting cephalic myotomes. |
| C, T, L, S, Co., The myotomes of the cervical, thoracic, lumbar, sacral and caudal regions. |
| I., II., III., IV., V., VI., VII., VIII., IX., X., XI., XII., Refer to the cranial nerves and the structures with which they may be embryologically associated. |
In some cases these
myocommata persist and even become ossified, as in the ribs, but more usually they disappear early, and the myotomes then unite with one another to form a great muscular sheet. In the whole length of the trunk a longitudinal cleavage at right angles to the surface occurs, splitting the musculature into a dorsal and ventral part, supplied respectively by the dorsal and ventral primary divisions of the spinal nerves. From the dorsal part the various muscles of the erector spinae series are derived by further longitudinal cleavages either tangential or at right angles to the surface, while the ventral part is again longitudinally split into mesial and lateral portions. A transverse section of the trunk at this stage, therefore, would show the cut ends of three longitudinal strips of muscle: (1) a mesial ventral, from which the rectus, pyramidalis sterno-hyoid, omo-hyoid and sterno-thyroid muscles are derived; (2) a lateral ventral, forming the flat muscles of the abdomen, intercostals and part of the sternomastoid and trapezius; and (3) the dorsal portion already noticed. The mesial ventral part is remarkable for the persistence of remnants of myocommata in it, forming the lineae transversae of the rectus and the central tendon of the omo-hyoid. The lateral part in the abdominal region splits tangentially into three layers