The deviations from the natural shape of the bones are many and various; in some instances they are congenital, very frequently they take place after birth. When congenital, they sometimes occur independently and alone, sometimes an apparatus with which the altered bone stands in intimate relation is malformed too; at other times the change of form, whether congenital or acquired, results from some disease in the bone itself, or in other structures. To avoid repetition, I do not enumerate them here; for the most important of them will be more conveniently described amongst the anomalies of the several parts of the skeleton, and of the bones composing them, as well as in the chapter on the Joints.