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been already noticed, with some of the oblique nutations of the head. Sometimes the number of co-operating muscles is very great. Dr. Nieuentyt, in the Leipsic Transactions, reckons up a hundred muscles that are employed every time we breathe; yet we take in, or let out, our breath, without reflecting what a work is thereby performed; what an apparatus is laid in, of instruments for the service, and how many such contribute their assistance to the effect. Breathing with ease, is a blessing of every moment; yet, of all others, it is that which we possess with the least consciousness. A man in an asthma is the only man who knows how to estimate it.

IV. Mr. Home has observed, that the most important and the most delicate actions are performed in the body by the smallest muscles: and he mentions, as his examples, the muscles which have been discovered in the iris of the eye, and the drum of the ear. The tenuity of these muscles is astonishing. They are microscopic hairs; must be magnified to be visible; yet are they real, effective muscles: and not only such, but the grandest and most precious of our faculties, sight and hearing, depend upon their health and action.

V. The muscles act in the limbs with what is called a mechanical disadvantage. The muscle at the shoulder, by which the arm is raised, is fixed nearly in the same manner as the load is fixed upon a steelyard, within a few decimals, we will say, of an inch, from the centre upon which the steelyard turns. In this situation, we find that a very heavy draught is no more than sufficient to countervail the force of a small lead plummet, placed upon the long arm of the steelyard, at the distance of perhaps fifteen or twenty inches from the centre and on the other side of it. And this is the disadvantage which is meant. And an absolute disadvantage, no doubt, it would be, if the object were to spare the force of muscular contraction. But observe how conducive is this constitution to animal conveniency. Mechanism has always in view one or other of these two purposes; either to move a great weight slowly, and through a small space, or to move a light weight rapidly, through a considerable sweep. For the former of these purposes a different species of lever, and a different collocation of the muscles, might be better than the present; but for the second, the present structure is the true Now so it happens, that the second, and not the first, is that which the occasions of animal life principally call for. In Phil. Trans. part i. 1800, p. 8.

one.

what concerns the human body, it is of much more consequence to any man to be able to carry his hand to his head with due expedition, than it would be to have the power of raising from the ground a heavier load (of two or three more hundred weight, we will suppose) than he can lift at present. This last is a faculty, which, on some extraordinary occasions, he may desire to possess: but the other is what he wants and uses every hour or minute. In like manner, a husbandman or a gardener will do more execution, by being able to carry his scythe, his rake, or his flail, with a sufficient dispatch through a sufficient space, than if, with greater strength, his motions were proportionably more confined, and slow. It is the same with a mechanic in the use of his tools. It is the same also with other animals in the use of their limbs. In general, the vivacity of their motions would be ill exchanged for greater force under a clumsier struc

ture.

We have offered our observations upon the structure of muscles in general; we have also noticed certain species of muscles; but there are also single muscles, which bear marks of mechanical contrivance, appropriate as well as particular. Out of many instances of this kind, we select the following.

I. Of muscular actions, even of those which are well understood, some of the most curious are incapable of popular explanation; at least, without the aid of plates and figures. This is in a great measure the case, with a very familiar, but, at the same time, a very complicated motion,-that of the lower jaw; and with the muscular structure by which it is produced. One of the muscles concerned may, however, be described in such a manner, as to be, I think, sufficiently comprehended for our present purpose. The problem is to pull the lower jaw down. The obvious method should seem to be, to place a straight muscle, viz. to fix a string from the chin to the breast, the contraction of which would open the mouth, and produce the motion required at once. But it is evident that the form and liberty of the neck forbid a muscle being laid in such a position; and that, consistently with the preservation of this form, the motion, which we want, must be effectuated by some muscular mechanism disposed farther back in the jaw. The mechanism adopted is as follows. A certain muscle called the diagastric rises on the side of the face, considerably above the insertion of the lower jaw, and comes down, being converted in its progress into a round tendon. Now it is manifest that the tendon, whilst it pursues a direction de

scending towards the jaw, must, by its contraction, pull the jaw up, instead of down. What then was to be done? This, we find, is done: The descending tendon, when it is got low enough, is passed through a loop, or ring, or pulley, in the os hyoïdes, and then made to ascend; and, having thus changed its line of direction, is inserted into the inner part of the chin: by which device, viz. the turn at the loop, the action of the muscle (which in all muscles is contraction) that before would have pulled the jaw up, now as necessarily draws it down. "The mouth," says Heister, "is opened by means of this trochlea in a most wonderful and elegant manner."

II. What contrivance can be more mechanical than the following, viz. a slit in one tendon to let another tendon pass through it? This structure is found in the tendons which move the toes and fingers. The long tendon, as it is called, in the foot, which bends the first joint of the toe, passes through the short tendon which bends the second joint; which course allows to the sinew more liberty, and a more commodious action than it would otherwise have been capable of exerting 2. There is nothing, I believe, in a silk or cotton mill, in the belts, or straps, or ropes, by which motion is communicated from one part of the machine to another, that is more artificial, or more evidently so, than this perforation.

III. The next circumstance which I shall mention, under this head of muscular arrangement, is so decisive a mark of intention, that it always appeared to me to supersede, in some measure, the necessity of seeking for any other observation upon the subject: and that circumstance is, the tendons, which pass from the leg to the foot, being bound down by a ligament to the ankle. The foot is placed at a considerable angle with the leg. It is manifest, therefore, that flexible strings, passing along the interior of the angle, if left to themselves, would, when streched, start from it. The obvious preventive is to tie them down. And this is done in fact. Across the instep, or rather just above it, the anatomist finds a strong ligament, under which the tendons pass to the foot. The effect of the ligament as a bandage, can be made evident to the senses; for if it be cut, the tendons start up. The simplicity, yet the clearness of this contrivance, its exact resemblance to established resources of art, place it amongst the most indubitable manifestations of design with which we are acquainted.

* Ches. Anat. p. 119.

There is also a farther use to be made of the present example, and that is, as it precisely contradicts the opinion, that the parts of animals may have been all formed by what is called appetency, i. e. endeavour, perpetuated, and imperceptibly working its effect, through an incalculable series of generations. We have here no endeavour, but the reverse of it; a constant renitency and reluctance. The endeavour is all the other way. The pressure of the ligament constrains the tendons; the tendons re-act upon the pressure of the ligament, It is impossible that the ligament should ever have been generated by the exercise of the tendon, or in the course of that exercise, forasmuch as the force of the tendon perpendicularly resists the fibre which confines it, and is constantly endeavouring, not to form, but to rupture and displace, the threads of which the ligament is composed.

Keill has reckoned up, in the human body, four hundred and forty-six muscles, dissectible and describable; and hath assigned a use to every one of the number. This cannot be all imagination.

Bishop Wilkins hath observed from Galen, that there are, at least, ten several qualifications to be attended to in each particular muscle; viz. its proper figure; its just magnitude; its fulcrum; its point of action, supposing the figure to be fixed; its collocation, with respect to its two ends, the upper and the lower; the place; the position of the whole muscle; the introduction into it of nerves, arteries, veins. How are things, including so many adjustments, to be made; or, when made, how are they to be put together, without intelligence?

I have sometimes wondered, why we are not struck with mechanism in animal bodies, as readily and as strongly as we are struck with it, at first sight, in a watch or a mill. One reason of the difference may be, that animal bodies are, in a great measure, made up of soft, flabby substances, such as muscles and membranes; whereas we have been accustomed to trace mechanism in sharp lines, in the configuration of hard materials, in the moulding, chiselling, and filing into shapes, of such articles as metals or wood. There is something therefore of habit in the case; but it is sufficiently evident, that there can be no proper reason for any distinction of the sort. Mechanism may be displayed in the one kind of substance, as well as in the other.

Although the few instances we have selected, even as they stand in our description, are nothing short perhaps of logical proofs of design, yet it must not be forgotten, that in every part of anatomy, description is a poor substitute for inspection. It is well said by an able anatomist, and said in reference to the very part of the subject which we have been treating of:—“ Imperfecta hæc musculorum descriptio, non minùs arida est legentibus, quàm inspectantibus fuerit jucunda eorundem præparatio. Elegantissima enim mechanicês artificia, creberrimè in illis obvia, verbis nonnisi obscurè exprimuntur: carnium autem ductu, tendinum colore, insertionum proportione, et trochlearium distributione, oculis exposita, omnem superant admirationem."

CHAPTER X.

OF THE VESSELS OF ANIMAL BODIES.

THE circulation of the blood, through the bodies of men and quadrupeds, and the apparatus by which it is carried on, compose a system, and testify a contrivance, perhaps the best understood of any part of the animal frame. The lymphatic system, or the nervous system, may be more subtle and intricate; nay, it is possible that in their structure they may be even more artificial than the sanguiferous; but we do not know so much about them.

The utility of the circulation of the blood, I assume as an acknowledged point. One grand purpose is plainly answered by it; the distributing to every part, every extremity, every nook and corner of the body, the nourishment which is received into it by one aperture. What enters at the mouth, finds its way to the fingers' ends. A more difficult mechanical problem could hardly I think be proposed, than to discover a method of constantly repairing the waste, and of supplying an accession of substance to every part of a complicated machine, at the same time.

This system presents itself under two views: first, the disposition of the blood-vessels, i. e. the laying of the pipes; and, secondly, the construction of the engine at the centre, viz. the heart, for driving the blood through them.

I. The disposition of the blood-vessels, as far as regard the supply of the body, is like that of the water-pipes in a city, viz.

Steno, in Blas. Anat. Animal. p. 2, c. 4.

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