Page 330 - Clinical Anatomy

ECA5 7/18/06 6:51 PM Page 315

The skull 315

(a)

(b)

Fig. 223◊The skull: (a) lateral aspect and (b) inferior aspect.

ture lines; however, unlike the usually straight lines of a fracture, suture
lines are extremely tortuous. The coronal suture divides the frontal from the
parietal bones, the sagittal suture separates the parietal bones in the
midline, the lambdoid suture marks off the occipital from the parietal and
temporal bones and the squamosal suture separates the squamous temporal
bone from the parietal bone and greater wing of sphenoid.
In about 8% of cases the metopic suture persists in the midline between
the two frontal bones; in the rest, this suture fuses at about the 5th year.