The hand : its mechanism and vital endowments, as evincing design / by Sir Charles Bell.

Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The hand : its mechanism and vital endowments, as evincing design / by Sir Charles Bell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    96/486 (page 74)
    COMPAEATIVE ANATOMY CQAP. III. muscles as to indicate great power. The spines which give origin to the muscles of rotation, project in an extra- ordinary manner; and the hand is large, flat, and so turned that it may shove the earth aside like a plough- share.* BKEIiBTON OF BAT. There can he no greater contrast to these hones of the mole than is presented in the skeleton of the hat. In this animal the hones are light and dehcate; and * The snout may vary in its internal structure with new offices. Naturalists say that there is a new element in the pig's nose : and it has, in fact, two bones which admit of motion, whilst they give more strength in digging up the ground. As moles plough the earth with their snouts, they lilcewise have tliese hones, and their head is shaped like a wedge, to assist in burrowing and throwing aside the earth. The confoi-mation of the head, and the strength of its bones, and the new adjustment of the muscle, (the platysma myoides) which is cutaneous in other animals, to assist in moving the head, are among the curious changes of common parts for enabling them to perform new offices. See again the « Additional Illustrations in the Appendix.