Note (5) — BOOK VIII.

5. And all the vertebræ.) What follows relating to the structure and connection of the vertebræ, appears to be very much corrupted, in so much, that the reading in all the copies makes our author contradict himself. I shall be content with mentioning some observations of Morgagni’s upon the reading of Linden. The words in the parenthesis (says he) exceptis tribus summis, except the three uppermost, were surely never wrote by Celsus, at least not as they stand; for if the three first vertebræ want depressions in their superior surfaces, how comes the first to receive into its depressions the two small processes of the head, as our author immediately adds?