Bourgelat, considering this posterior portion as belonging to the biceps cruris, to which, it is true, it adheres, forms of them a muscle which he designates under the name of the long vastus. The anterior fasciculus of this long vastus is none other than the posterior portion of the great gluteal which we have just been studying.
Muscles of the Thigh
These muscles are divided into three regions: posterior, anterior, and internal.
In a corresponding manner to that which we described in connection with the arm, the thigh is applied to the side of the trunk, and is free, more or less, only at the level of the inferior part.
Further, by reason of this shortening of the femur, the great gluteal muscle, which is elongated in the ox and the horse, for example, occupies in part the region corresponding to that which in man is occupied by the muscles of the thigh, which here are reduced in length. In other words, they are not superposed, as in the human species, but juxtaposed. This is what we will verify further on.
The thigh, as a whole, is flattened from without inwards, its transverse diameter being less in extent than its antero-posterior. Its external surface is slightly rounded; that is, of course, in quadrupeds with sufficiently well-developed muscles. Its internal surface is known as the flat of the thigh.
Muscles of the Posterior Region
It is not unprofitable to recall to mind what muscles form the superficial layer of this region in the human being. They are the biceps cruris, semi-tendinosus, and semi-membranosus. We now proceed to discover their analogues in quadrupeds.
Biceps Cruris ([Fig. 68], 30; [Fig. 69], 27; [Fig. 70], 36).—It is this which, according to Bourgelat, forms the central and posterior portions of the long vastus muscle which we have mentioned above.
We know that the biceps of man is so named from the two portions which form its upper part. In domestic quadrupeds, and also in the majority of the mammals, this muscle is reduced to a single portion, that which comes from the pelvis. It is therefore the portion which arises from the femur which does not exist. This condition is sometimes found as an abnormality in the human species.