Taking everything into consideration, the writer is more than ever convinced that the lingual hyperostoses of the normal lower (as well as the upper) jaw, in the Eskimo as elsewhere, are physiological, ontogenic developments, whose object and function is the strengthening of the lower alveolar process in its lateral portions. Only when excessively developed, which is very rare, they may, mechanically, perhaps cause discomfort and thereby approach a pathological condition.
FOOTNOTES:
[169] None in the younger children.
[170] All in older children or adolescents.
[171] Danielli, J., Arch. p. l'antrop. e l'etnol., 1884, XIV.
[172] Meddel. om. Grønl., 1887, No. 17.
[173] Beitr. Kraniol. d. Insul. w. Küste Amer., 1889, 398.
[174] Arch. Anthrop., 1902, XXVII, 70.
[175] J. Anthr. Inst., 1900, XXX, 134.
[176] Abh. und Ber. Zool. und Anthr. Mus., Dresden, 1908, XII.