File:The hand - its mechanism and vital endowments, as evincing design, and illustrating the power, wisdom, and goodness of God (1874) (14779003441).jpg

Identifier: handitsmechanism1874bell (find matches)
Title: The hand : its mechanism and vital endowments, as evincing design, and illustrating the power, wisdom, and goodness of God
Year: 1874 (1870s)
Authors: Bell, Charles, Sir, 1774-1842 Shaw, Alexander, 1804-1890
Subjects: Hand Intelligent design (Teleology) Hand Religious Philosophies Biological Evolution Evolution
Publisher: London : G. Bell
Contributing Library: Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine
Digitizing Sponsor: Open Knowledge Commons and Harvard Medical School

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
she lifteth up herselfon high, and scorneth the horse and his rider. After the many illustrations which we have adducedfrom mechanics, the muscular power itself must be asubject of surprise and admiration. Gravity, theexpansion and condensation of steam, the evolution ofgases, the spring or elasticity of material, or all thesecombined, could not have answered the varied officesperformed by this one property of life,—muscular con-tractility. The irritable and contractile fibre, of whichmuscle is composed, when chemically considered, doesnot differ from the fibrine of the blood; but from beingendowed with this property of contraction, and adaptedwith mechanical ingenuity, it fulfils a thousand dis-tinct purposes, in volition, breathing, speaking, diges-tion, circulation; and it is modified in all these * I am indebted to Mr. Shaw, for these interesting demonstratioas of thetrichs foot. 136 MECHANICAL PROPERTIES functions according to tlie wants and condition of everyclass of animals.
Text Appearing After Image:
MUSCLES OF LIOS g PAW, From what the reader already understands of the cHAP.iY OF THE MUSCLES. 137 conformity subsisting among all parts of an animal body,he will readily comprehend that a i)erfect relation mustbe established between the bones and the muscles:that as the bones of different animals exhibit a varietyin their size, relative position, and articulations, somust there be an adaptation of the muscles. Accord-ingly, we sometimes find the muscles separated intosmaller, and sometimes consolidated into more power-ful masses. To the anatomical student, the mode ofdemonstrating the muscles of the human hand andarm, becomes the test of his masters perfection as ateacher. When they are taken successively, just asthey present themselves in the arm, nothing can bemore miinteresting, tedious, and difficult to attend to,than such a demonstration; but when they are taughtwith lucid arrangement, according to the motions per-formed by the distinct groups of muscles, it is positivelyagTeeab

Note About Images