Chest

Anatomy of the (human) chest

It is important to realize that the shape of the chest does not correspond to that of the bony thorax which encloses the heart and lungs; all the breadth of the shoulders is due to the shoulder girdle, and contains the axilla and the head of the humerus. In the middle line the suprasternal notch is seen above, while about three fingers' breadth below it a transverse ridge can be felt, which is known as Ludovic's angle and marks the junction between the manubrium and gladiolus of the sternum. Level with this line the second ribs join the sternum, and when these are found the lower ribs may be easily counted in a moderately thin subject. At the lower part of the sternum, where the seventh or last true ribs join it, the ensiform cartilage begins, and over this there is often a depression popularly known as the pit of the stomach. The nipple in the male is situated in front of the fourth rib or a little below; vertically it lies a little external to a line drawn down from the middle of the clavicle; in the female it is not so constant. A little below it the lower limit of the great pectoral muscle is seen running upward and outward to the axilla; in the female this is obscured by the breast, which extends from the second to the sixth rib vertically and from the edge of the sternum to the mid-axillary line laterally. The female nipple is surrounded for half an inch by a more or less pigmented disc, the areola. The apex of a normal heart is in the fifth left intercostal space, three and a half inches from the mid-line.

(from an old encyclopedia)