Sir,

In his letter of Sept. 30, Dr. Barlow quotes from an article by Prof. Raymond Dart (1) in which he discusses "the muscles which look after the relationship of the head with the vertebral column in man . . ." Dr. Barlow may not be aware that Professor Dart has acknowledged indebtedness in this connection to a pamphlet which I published in 1937. At that time I wrote:

"An examination of a schema of the base of the skull showing the plotting of all muscles therein will show that, while there is a preponderant mass of muscles inserted posterior to the foramen magnum, there is, anterior to the foramen magnum, a very feeble grouping of muscles. Observations of the living subject will at once reveal that the common misuse of the semispinalis capitis the splenius capitia, the sterno-mastoid, and the trapezius muscles leads to a retraction and depression of the back of the head, and an overbalancing of the primary group of muscles whose function is to maintain the relation of the head to the cervical spine."

The group of muscles which I named primary, inasmuch as I claimed that their action, determined all further relationships in living man, comprised the atlas -occipital, axis-occipital, and atlas-axis muscles, all taken together.

I am not interested in claiming any credit for myself in having made this observation, but I am most anxious that credit should be given to Mr. F. Matthias Alexander, whose teaching showed me that experience in the employment of his technique enabled an investigator to obtain the advantage described in the title of my pamphlet ­ namely, a "Reorientation of the View Point upon the Study of Anatomy" ­ and thus the attainment of means whereby a person might make constructive observations on the fundamentals of human physiology.

Mungo Douglas
Bolton

(1) Dart, R. S. Afr. med. J. 1947, 21, 74.