Skip to main content

1850SappeyMPC

 

The author expresses the opinion that the primary role of the ligamentum capitis femoris (LCF) is to protect the blood vessels supplying the femoral head. We believe that 1820PallettaGB was the first to express such a point of view. M.P.C. Sappey describes the macro and microanatomy of the LCF and draws attention to its three bundles, which attach to various parts of the acetabulum. However, the anatomist does not indicate that LCF originates from the transverse ligament of the acetabulum.


 

SappeyMPC. Manuel d’anatomie descriptive et de préparations anatomiques. Tome premièr. Ostéologie, Arthrologie, Myologie et Aponévrologie, avec 114 figures intercalées dans le texte. Paris: Germer Baillière, 1850. [fragments]

Quote p. 96

La tête fémorale est une éminence de forme sphérique, dirigée en haut et en dedans, lisse et revêtue de cartilages dans sa partie supérieure et interne pour s'articuler avec la cavité cotyloïde, et déprimée à son sommet pour l'insertion du ligament rond.

The head of the femur is a prominence of spherical shape, directed upwards and inwards, smooth and covered with cartilage in its upper and inner part for articulation with the acetabulum, and depressed at the apex for the attachment of the round ligament.

Quote pp. 143-144

2° Ligament interarticulaire. Ce cordon fibreux, appelé aussi ligament rond, s'étend de la dépression qu'on observe au centre de la surface articulaire du fémur, à la dépression correspondante de la cavité cotyloïde, au niveau de laquelle il se décompose en trois bandelettes : l'une plus courte qui s'insère à la partie la plus interne de cette dépression, les deux autres plus longues qui s'attachent aux bords de l'échancrure destinée au passage des vaisseaux de l'articulation; ainsi disposé ce cordon constitue une gaîne infundibuliforme qui a pour usage, moins d'unir le fémur au bassin, que de loger et de protéger les vaisseaux intra-articulaires dans le trajet qu'ils parcourent depuis l'échancrure de la cavité cotyloïde jusqu'à la tête fémorale; car en l'absence de cet étui protecteur les vaisseaux fémoraux deviendraient évidemment impossibles; comment des vaisseaux aussi grêles supporteraient-ils les tractions violentes auxquelles ce ligament est soumis dans certains mouvements? ils se rompraient et disparaîtraient bientôt. Mais ces efforts étant supportés par une enveloppe fibreuse qui offre moins de longueur, ils demeurent intacts et le sang les parcourt librement.

Le tissu cellulo-graisseux qui occupe la dépression de la cavité cotyloïde est une sorte de coussinet sur lequel le ligament rond s'étale dans les divers mouvements du membre inférieur, et où il se trouve à l'abri de toute compression capable de suspendre la circulation dans les vaisseaux qu'il renferme.

La synoviale de l'articulation coxo-fémorale entoure ce ligament inter. articulaire, lui forme une sorte de petit mésentère, et se prolonge ensuite sur la face interne de la capsule fibreuse; elle est lâche en arrière et communique souvent en avant avec la bourse séreuse située au-dessous des muscles psoas et iliaque.

2. Interarticular ligament. This fibrous band, also known as the round ligament, extends from the depression observed in the center of the articular surface of the femur to the corresponding depression of the acetabulum, where it divides into three strips: one shorter, which attaches to the innermost part of this depression, and two longer ones attached to the edges of the notch, and intended for the passage of the joint vessels. Constructed in this way, this cord has a funnel-shaped sheath, the purpose of which is not so much to connect the femur to the pelvis, but to accommodate and protect the intra-articular vessels along the path from the notch of the acetabulum to the head of the femur; because without this protective sheath the hip vessels would obviously become impossible; how could such thin vessels withstand the strong tension to which this ligament is subjected during certain movements? They would soon rupture and disappear. But due to the fact that these loads are shunted by a fibrous membrane that has a shorter length, the vessels remain intact and blood flows freely through them.

The adipose tissue occupying the acetabular fossa is a kind of cushion on which the round ligament spreads out during various movements of the lower limb and is protected from any compression capable of impeding the circulation in the vessels it contains.

The synovial membrane of the hip joint surrounds this interarticular ligament, forming a kind of small mesentery, and then extends onto the inner surface of the fibrous capsule; it is loose at the back and often communicates at the front with the bursa located below the psoas and iliacus muscles.

Quote pp. 495-496

5o Artère circonflexe interne. Elle naît ordinairement de la profonde sur un point très rapproché de son origine et quelquefois du tronc de la fémorale. Son volume assez considérable est tantôt égal et tantôt supérieur à celui de la musculaire superficielle. Située à son origine au côté interne du tendon commun des muscles psoas et iliaque, elle s'introduit bientôt entre le pectiné et le col du fémur qu'elle contourne de dedans en dehors, de même que la circonflexe scapulaire postérieure contourne le col chirurgical de l'humerus, et arrive en longeant l'obturateur externe, au niveau du bord inférieur du muscle carré sous lequel elle se divise en deux branches terminales.

Avant sa bifurcation elle fournit:

1° Une branche articulaire qui se porte en haut, en avant et en dedans, parallèlement au ligament capsulaire sur lequel elle est appliquée, et pénètre dans l'articulation coxo-fémorale par l'échancrure de la cavité cotyloïde, en passant sous le cordon fibreux qui convertit en trou cette échancrure; parvenue à la base du ligament rond elle se partage: en rameaux cotyloïdiens qui se perdent soit dans le tissu cellulo-adipeux de l'arrièrefond de la cavité cotyloïde, soit dans les parois de cette cavité; et en rameaux femoraux qui traversent l'axe du ligament rond pour se rendre dans la tête du fémur au sommet de laquelle ils se distribuent.

2o Des branches périostiques fort remarquables qui traversent l'extrémité inférieure de la capsule articulaire et rampent de bas en haut, à la surface du col du fémur, sous la synoviale dont ils reçoivent au voisinage de la tête fémorale une enveloppe complète. Ces branches, très nombreuses, s'avancent jusqu'au niveau de la couche cartilagineuse, en s'anastomosant par des ramuscules latéraux; du périoste elles passent au col et à la tête du fémur, où les plus élevées communiquent avec les rameaux transmis par le ligament rond. A la suite d'une fracture intra-articulaire du col, ces derniers sont les seuls vaisseaux nutritifs qui arrivent à la tête du fémur; quoique d'une extrême ténuité, ils suffisent pour entretenir la vitalité de ce fragment et permettre à un travail de consolidation osseuse ou fibreuse de s'accomplir.

 

 

Internal circumflex artery. It usually arises from the deep artery very close to its origin and sometimes from the femoral artery trunk. Its quite significant volume sometimes equals, and sometimes exceeds, the volume of the superficial muscular artery. Starting its course from the inner side of the common tendon of the lumbar and iliac muscles, it soon penetrates between the pectineus muscle and the neck of the femur, which it circumvents from the inside to the outside, similar to how the posterior circumflex humeral artery circumvents the surgical neck of the humerus, and reaches along the external obturator muscle, at the level of the lower edge of the quadratus femoris muscle, where it divides into two terminal branches.

Before its bifurcation, it provides:

1. An articular branch that extends upward, forward, and inward, parallel to the capsular ligament on which it is applied, and enters the hip joint through the acetabular notch, passing beneath the fibrous fibers that convert this notch into a hole; upon reaching the base of the round ligament, it divides into: acetabular branches, which are lost either in the adipose tissue at the bottom of the acetabulum or in the walls of this cavity; and femoral branches, which cross the axis of the round ligament and reach the head of the femur, where at the apex they branch.

2. Very remarkable are the periosteal branches which cross the lower end of the joint capsule and follow from below upward along the surface of the femoral neck, under the synovial membrane, from which they receive a complete sheath in the region of the femoral head. These branches, very numerous, reach the level of the cartilaginous layer, anastomosing with the lateral branches; from the periosteum they pass to the neck and head of the femur, where higher branches connect with branches passing through the round ligament. After an intra-articular fracture of the neck, the latter are the only nutrient vessels reaching the head of the femur; although they are extremely thin, they are sufficient to maintain the viability of this fragment and allow the process of osteo- or fibrous regeneration to begin.





External links

Sappey MPC. Manuel d’anatomie descriptive et de préparations anatomiques. Tome premièr. Ostéologie, Arthrologie, Myologie et Aponévrologie, avec 114 figures intercalées dans le texte. Paris: Germer Baillière, 1850. [archive.org , books.google]

 

Authors & Affiliations

 

Marie Philibert Constant Sappey (1810-1896) was a French anatomist, a Professor of anatomy in Paris, President of the Académie Nationale de Médecine. [wikipedia.org]

 

Portrait of Constant Sappey (1871)
Photography Pierre Petit; Gualbert the copyright holder of this work; original in the 
wikimedia.org collection (GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2, color correction)

  

Sappey, Marie Philibert Constant (1894)
The author of the image is S. Reymond? (see 
Corlieu A. Centenaire de la Faculté de Médecine de Paris (1794-1894). Paris, 1894.); original in the BIU Santé Médecine collection, image: CIPN21614 (Licence Ouverte / Open License, color correction)



Keywords

ligamentum capitis femoris, ligamentum teres, ligament of head of femur, role, significance, anatomy, blood supply, vascularization, stroma, microanatomy, structure

                                                                     .

NB! Fair practice / use: copied for the purposes of criticism, review, comment, research and private study in accordance with Copyright Laws of the US: 17 U.S.C. §107; Copyright Law of the EU: Dir. 2001/29/EC, art.5/3a,d; Copyright Law of the RU: ГК РФ ст.1274/1.1-2,7

MORPHOLOGY AND TOPOGRAPHY

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Catalog. LCF of Extinct Species

Discussion of the LCF and morphological signs of its existence in extinct species.   Funston, G. F. (2024). Osteology of the two-fingered oviraptorid Oksoko avarsan (Theropoda: Oviraptorosauria). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, zlae011. [ academic.oup.com ] Hafed, A. B., Koretsky, I. A., Nance, J. R., Koper, L., & Rahmat, S. J. (2024). New Neogene fossil phocid postcranial material from the Atlantic (USA). Historical Biology, 1-20. [ tandfonline.com ] Kuznetsov, A. N., & Sennikov, A. G. (2000). On the function of a perforated acetabulum in archosaurs and birds. PALEONTOLOGICAL JOURNAL C/C OF PALEONTOLOGICHESKII ZHURNAL, 34(4), 439-448. [ researchgate.net ] Romer, A. S. (1922). The locomotor apparatus of certain primitive and mammal-like reptiles. Bulletin of the AMNH; v. 46, article 10. [ digitallibrary.amnh.org  ,  digitallibrary.amnh.org(PDF) ]    Słowiak, J., Brusatte, S. L., & Szczygielski, T. (2024). Reassessment of the enigmati...

LCF in 2025 (November)

  LCF in 2025 ( November )   (Quotes from articles and books published in  October  2025 mentioning the ligamentum capitis femoris)   Awad, A., Rizk, A., ElAlfy, M., Hamed, M., Abdelghany, A. M., Mosbah, E., ... & Karrouf, G. (2025). Synergistic Effects of Hydroxyapatite Nanoparticles and Platelet Rich Fibrin on Femoral Head Avascular Necrosis Repair in a Rat Model.  Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part B: Applied Biomaterials ,  113 (11), e35672.    [i]    onlinelibrary.wiley.com   Loughzail, M. R., Aguenaou, O., Fekhaoui, M. R., Mekkaoui, J., Bassir, R. A., Boufettal, M., ... & Lamrani, M. O. (2025). Posterior Fracture–Dislocation of the Femoral Head: A Case Report and Review of the Literature.  Sch J Med Case Rep ,  10 , 2483-2486.     [ii]    saspublishers.com  ,  saspublishers.com   Vertesich, K., Noebauer-Huhmann, I. M., Schreiner, M., Schneider, E., Willegger,...

2025ChenJH_AcklandD

  The article by Chen JH, Al’Khafaji I, Ernstbrunner L, O’Donnell J, Ackland D. Joint contact behavior in the native, ligamentum teres deficient and surgically reconstructed hip: A biomechanics study on the anatomically normal hip (2025). The authors experimentally demonstrated the role of the ligamentum capitis femoris (LCF) in unloading the upper sector of the acetabulum and the femoral head. The text in Russian is available at the following link: 2025ChenJH_AcklandD . Joint contact behavior in the native, ligamentum teres deficient and surgically reconstructed hip: A biomechanics study on the anatomically normal hip By  Chen JH, Al’Khafaji I, Ernstbrunner L, O’Donnell J, Ackland D.     CONTENT [i]   Abstract [ii]   Introduction [iii]   Materials and methods [iv]   Results [v]   Discussion and Conclusion [vi]   References [vii]   Application [i]   Abstract Background The ligamentum teres is known to contribute to hip joint st...

1898AshhurstJ

    Report Ashhurst J. Tuberculosis of the hip joint (1898). The author discusses the function of the LCF as a supporting element of the body, its role in the development of deformity of the hip joint, reducing pressure and stress in the femoral head. The most notable quotes:  «Of course, the whole weight of the body is not sustained by this ligament, but mostly by the head of the femur in more or less close contact with the cotyloid cavity; but this ligament, I believe, serves to diminish the pressure of the pelvis upon the head of the bone, and to lessen strain. The position of the ligamentum teres is like that of the old-fasioned leather springs which used to be found in stage- coaches, the body of the coach being balanced upon two broad strong bands of leather. The pelvis is to a certain extent similarly balanced upon these ligaments on either side, which are attached to the heads of the thigh- bones, and then pass down to the lower edges of the cotyloid cavities. I b...

1816MeckelJF

    The author discusses the anatomy and function of the ligamentum capitis femoris (LCF), and also identifies one of the reasons for its damage. The translation was done in collaboration with ChatGPT 3.5.   Meckel JF. Handbuch der menschlichen Anatomie. Zweiter Band. Besondere Anatomie. Halle, Berlin: Buchhandlung des Hallischen Waisenhauses, 1816. [fragment] Quote p p . 3 65 -366 c. Runds band §. 948. Gerade vor dem Theile der Synovialhaut, welcher auf der Lücke unter dem brückenförmigen Theile der Knorpellippe liegt, entspringt ein, ungefähr einen Zoll langes, sehr länglichviereckiges Band, das runde Band des Oberschenkels (Ligamentum ossis femoris teres s. rotundum) welches, an beiden Enden etwas ausgebreitet, sich mit seis nem äußern an die Bertiefung im Kopfe des Oberschenkels beines heftet und zu noch größerer Befestigung deffelben beiträgt. Es besteht aus longitudinalen Fasern, welche sich an das obere un...

2025VertesichK_ChiariC

   Content [i]   Annotation [ii]   Original text (in  German) [iii]   References [iv]   Source  &  links [v]   Notes [vi]   Authors & Affiliations [vii]   Keywords [i]   Annotation Fragments from the article: Vertesich K, Noebauer-Huhmann IM, Schreiner M, Schneider E, Willegger M, Böhler C, Windhager R, Chiari C. The position of the femoral fovea can indicate hip instability and highly correlates with lesions of the ligamentum teres: an observational study (2025). The authors discuss the diagnosis of pathology of the ligamentum capitis femoris (LCF) based on radiological & MRI data. The text in Russian is available at the following link: 2025VertesichK_ChiariC . [ii]   Original text (in   German)   The position of the femoral fovea can indicate hip instability and highly correlates with lesions of the ligamentum teres: an observational study Klemens Vertesich, Iris-Melanie Noebauer-Huhmann, Marku...

BIBLICAL DAMAGE

  Biblical damage (Artists and sculptors on the LCF damage described in the Bible:  painting, sculpture, icon, fresco, engraving…)     386Brescia_Casket  Bas-relief. Drawing depicting the circumstances and mechanism of the LCF injury. 6c.Vienna_Genesis   Miniature. Drawing depicting the circumstances and mechanism of the LCF injury. 10c.Cross  Bas-relief. Drawing depi cting the circumstances and mechanism of the LCF injury.  1000Jacob&Archangel  Fresco. Drawing depicting the circumstances and mechanism of the LCF injury.  1050Aelfric     Drawing depicting the circumstances and mechanism of the LCF injury.  1140St.Marie-Madeleine   Capital. Drawing depicting the circumstances and mechanism of the LCF injury.  1143 Palantine_Chapel   Mosaic . Drawing depicting the circumstances and mechanism of the LCF injury. 1213L’histoire_ancienne.   M iniature . Drawing depicting the circumstances and mecha...

DIAGNOSTICS AND EXAMINATION

  DIAGNOSTICS AND EXAMINATION   (Diagnostic, examination and testing methods... ) Catalog. LCF Pathology Tests   Tests for the detection of pathology LCF.  2004VialleR_GlorionC  The article discusses the examination technique for dislocation of the femur and describes the radiographic symptom of infringement of the damaged LCF. 2025VertesichK_ChiariC   The authors discuss the diagnosis of pathology of the ligamentum capitis femoris (LCF) based on radiological & MRI data. BLOG CONTENT DIAGNOSTICS AND EXAMINATION                                                                    

1918GrayH

Fragments from the book Gray H. Anatomy, descriptive and surgical (1918; 20th e d . ). The selected passages on the anatomy of the ligamentum capitis femoris (LCF) and color illustrations.   Fig. 235. — Right hip bone. External surface. Quote p. 237 The Acetabulum (cotyloid cavity). — The acetabulum is a deep, cup-shaped, hemispherical depression, directed downward, lateralward, and forward. It is formed medially by the pubis, above by the ilium, laterally and below by the ischium; a little less than two-fifths is contributed by the ilium, a little more than two-fifths by the ischium, and the remaining fifth by the pubis. It is bounded by a prominent uneven rim, which is thick and strong above, and serves for the attachment of the glenoidal labrum (cotyloid ligament), which contracts its orifice, and deepens the surface for articulation. It presents below a deep notch, the acetabular notch, which is continuous with a circular non-articular depression, the acetabular fossa, at th...

1832MeckelJF

  Fragments of the book Meckel JF. Manual of general, descriptive, and pathological anatomy (1832) dedicated to ligamentum capitis femoris (LCF). The author briefly discusses abnormalities of the LCF and its distal insertion. Quote p. 257 § 308. Among the deviations from the normal state, primitive deviations of the external form are rare, and usually attend anomalies of the other tissues. Among these we arrange, for instance, the absence of the tendons of the abdominal muscles, that of the ligaments of the vertebral column, and that of the dura mater of the brain and spinal marrow, &c., in a congenital fissure of the abdomen, of the vertebral column, and of the skull, and that of the tendons and the muscles of a finger, when the finger itself is wanting. But the fibrous organs are seldom deficient, when the other tissues with which they combine to form a part are present — for instance, the tendon alone of a muscle is rarely absent, or the tunica sclerotica, when the othe...