Supernumerary cervical ribs, as furnishing the cause of many obscure and some very serious nerve lesions affecting the arm, have not been sufficiently recognized in neurologic literature. It is almost startling that no textbook on nervous diseases makes the slightest detailed mention of cervical ribs in connection with brachial plexus disorders, excepting the English translation of Oppenheim. Even the great handbook of Levandowsky has only a slight reference to cervical ribs, and Chipault's "Surgery of the Nervous System" is devoid of any mention of the subject. Works on surgery and radiography have much more.
The frequency of cervical ribs is much greater than is usually understood. Fischel in Prague, in four years, found cervical ribs in 1 per cent. of all the bodies examined. Their most common location is in conjunction with the seventh cervical vertebra, next in relation to the sixth and seventh, and then to the fifth and