A Bone for All Seasons: The Human Pelvis

There are some cool things about getting older (I’m lying; most everything stinks. I can’t hear as well, see as well, taste food as well, and I forget things. At a recent faculty meeting someone even gave me a seat; and a former student, now a Vice President, fixed my tie. Not good signs.) One plus, however, is that as you march towards being a picture on a wall somewhere you realize that you have experienced directly the history of your world. While all the “Gen X’ers” and “Millenials” and “Gen Z’ers” can read about 20th century science, those of us who don’t call a book “hard copy” or don’t think its chic to wear the flag as underwear can go back to actually having been a part of what occurred. We experienced it, we lived it, we touched it; we saw how it shaped the way we understand and appreciate science today. So is the case with the story of the pelvis that I will tell here. A little more personal backstory to set the stage. I like dissecting; no, I really adore dissecting. Goes back to childhood (doesn’t everything? ) In grade school, and even in high school, I was never permitted to take any “shop” classes. Those included “auto-shop,” “electrical shop,” and the one I wanted most, “wood-shop. ” Because I was on what the New York City School System called the “Academic Track,” I was not allowed to learn anything practical, nothing in which I used my hands. That education was restricted to those not expected to go on to higher education. I, being one of the chosen ones (here referring to IQ), was given classes on subjects like “Medieval French Poetry,” “Richard III and The War of the Roses,” and “Gothic Architecture” instead (guess what three things I hate today? ). Who does that to a twelve-year old? I remember having to describe the metrics in French fabliaux and compare them to similar ones from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. I can barely change a light bulb because of the practical gaps in my education. My friends could fix a Pontiac GTO’s carburetor or hot-wire a T-Bird and all I could do was recite a ballad or delve into poor Richard III’s issues! How was this esoterica ever going to impress a cheerleader? Oy! Enough moaning about 1960s educational theory (I could start on current, medical educational theory but let’s not go there). All this rather arcane, if wellintentioned, “book-learning” did get me top grades later in college (I did have to join a jock frat, however, to find those cheerleaders) and eventually helped me garner fellowships for graduate study at Yale, where I was accepted to investigate lemur behavior in Madagascar and the meaning of evolutionary and linguistic theory. Once there, however, I rebelled. Anatomy was the cause. As soon as I encountered Gross lab, and smelled the smells, it was as if my senses collectively heard the call of the wild. Once I was given a scalpel I was finally liberated. All those years of interacting with odd books, being around kids with glasses, talking about Kierkegaard, iambic pentameter, Fibonacci sequences and that damn Richard III (hate that guy! ) were out the window; I finally could, would, be a person like all others and use my hands. I could now dissect. Only problem was I stunk. “Don’t worry, “Peter said, “I’ll get the band aid. ” Great way to begin one’s first day of Anatomy! Peter-Peter Dodson-now Professor of Veterinary Anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania and amongst the most distinguished of dinosaur experts in the world (see Dodson, 2009; Laitman, 2009) was a senior graduate student when I was beginning my journey at Yale back in 1973. He took me under his wing and always protected me. “You’ll get the hang of it” he added, positive as always. “You cut yourself already? ” came a booming voice over my shoulder. That was not Peter; it was Edmund S. Crelin, our Anatomy Professor, and the master I was hoping to one-day study under. “Who cuts himself in the first hour of anatomy lab? ” questioned Crelin. “Do you mind blood? ” he asked me. “No, sir” I stammered. “Good. Looks like you’re going to see plenty of it! And stop hunching over so much; you’ll end up looking like Richard III! ” What! He said what? Not a good start. But, start I did, and I did get better, actually, much better. Dissecting gave me a sense of peace and fulfillment as it has for many. I made up for all those years of not being able to touch things by literally living in the lab (or a small room next to it) that served as my office. My years of digital deprivation led me to overcompensate by dissecting every inch of every beast that I could work into my schedule, be it at the medical school or across campus at my second home, the Peabody Museum of Natural History. All regions fascinated me as well: the limbs had an organization and regularity that was serenely predictable and comforting, and fun to see differences between different species; the thoraco-abdominal organs were plentiful and each with their own story and definable embryology and regularity (I like order and was learning that I liked predictability); the brain was disappointing on a gross level, but histologically fascinating; and the area of my eventual love and life’s work, the majestic larynx, with its outer shell of cartilages opening onto an inner world of