[Study of the development of the human knee joint]

Abstract

By studying a complete series of sections of the human knee joint during the period in which the joint gap develops we have found out that the knee joint contains a high broad septum (the mediastinum genus), in which there are many broad vessels. These vessels feed the cruciate ligament anlages, the meniscus anlages and the cartilagenous models of the adjacent bone anlages. In the human embryo the mediastinum genus splits the knee joint into a lateral and a medial half. Communication between these 2 halves is between the small contact surfaces of the patella and femur anlages.