MUSCLES OF THE ANTERIOR LIMBS
Muscles of the Shoulder
Deltoid ([Fig. 68], 16, 17; [Fig. 69], 18; [Fig. 70], 24).—This is the first muscle we study in connection with the shoulder in human anatomy. Indeed, its wholly superficial position, and especially the manner in which it is separated from the surrounding muscles, its volume, and its characteristic modelling, give it such an importance that, from the didactic point of view, there is every indication for commencing with this muscle in studying the region to which it belongs. If, in regard to quadrupeds, we also commence with it, it is merely in deference to the spirit of method, and for the sake of symmetry; for it is far from presenting, in the latter, characters so distinctive and so clearly defined.
It is necessary to remark, at the outset, that in quadrupeds, on account of the absence or slight development of the clavicle, the clavicular portion of this muscle is, as we have shown, united to bundles of the same kind belonging to the sterno-cleido-mastoid and trapezius to form the mastoido-humeral (see [p. 151]). There exists, therefore, in an independent form, the scapular portion only.
It is this latter which, by itself alone, forms the deltoid of quadrupeds, a muscle known, in veterinary anatomy, as the long abductor of the arm.
In the dog and the cat it consists of two parts, one of which arises from the spine of the scapula; the other from the acromion process. Thence it passes to the crest of the humerus, which limits the musculo-spiral groove anteriorly, to be attached at a point which is found, as in other quadrupeds, to be the homologue of the human deltoid impression, or deltoid V, of the human humerus.
In the ox, in which the acromion process, which is very rudimentary, does not attain the level of the glenoid cavity, the acromion portion is but slightly marked off from that which takes its origin from the spine of the scapula.
Still, in the horse, which is completely deprived of an acromion process, the deltoid muscle is correspondingly divided into two parts, separated from one another by superficial interstices, but of which the arrangement differs from that of the portions above indicated; one part, the posterior, arises above from the superior part of the posterior border, and the postero-superior angle of the scapula (exactly as if, in man, certain fasciculi of the deltoid took their origin from the axillary border and inferior angle of the scapula); the other, anterior, arises from the tuberosity of the spine of the same bone. The two parts, united inferiorly, proceed to be inserted into the deltoid impression or infratrochiterian crest of the humerus.
It is necessary to add that the deltoid is inserted into the humerus, above the insertion of the mastoido-humeral.
This muscle flexes and abducts the humerus, and also rotates it outwards.