I would like to make a comment on the story I posted on April 8, 2006. The heading was:

Father sentenced to life in murder of his son (Tennessee)

I am responding specifically to the part of the story that said; " In the two weeks before his death, Lex sustained 23 broken ribs, a broken arm and a broken leg — all of which went untreated. At the time of his death, his tiny body was a mass of bruises, cuts, tears, burns and scrapes."

I received a response from a reader that stated:
Anonymous said...
Newsflash lady, nobody has 23 damn ribs!! Once again, you're going for the shock effect and manipulating the numbers to scare people into believeing that meth addicts are all scary, violent people.

I did some research and responded with:

DEATHBYMETH said...
There are Twelve pairs of flexible, archlike ribs form the lateral portions of the thoracic cage. They increase in length from the first to the seventh and then decrease again from the eighth to the twelfth.
(Weinreb, E. L. 1984. Anatomy and Physiology. Addison Wesley Publ. Co., Inc. Menlo Park, CA. p. 345.)

So, I wanted to post this information in case there was anyone else out there who was unsure of anatomy. Thank you. Kim