Hand and wrist
Each hand and wrist has 27 bones in three groups. The eight carpals form the wrist in two rows of four. The five metacarpals make the palm. The 14 phalanges make the fingers, two in the thumb and three in each of the others.
The bones of the left hand from the palm side, Gray's Anatomy, 1918, figure 219Wikimedia Commons, Henry Vandyke Carter, Public domain (Gray219.png)
The two hands hold 54 bones, about a quarter of all the bones in the body. Their many small joints let the hand fit itself to what it holds.
The groups of bones in the hand: carpals, metacarpals and proximal, intermediate and distal phalangesWikimedia Commons, Mariana Ruiz Villarreal (LadyofHats), retouched by Nyks, Public domain (Scheme human hand bones-en.svg)
Sources
- Susan Standring (ed.), Gray's Anatomy, 42nd ed. (2020), chapter on the wrist and hand.
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