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

  • Bell, Charles, Sir, 1774-1842.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

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

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    stances. To what animal does it belong 1 The globular form of the articulating surface, and the very slight projection of the tubercles, evince a latitude of mo- tion. Now, freedom of motion in the shoulder implies a similar free- dom in the extremity or paw, and a power of rotation of the wrist. Accordingly, we direct the eye to that part of the bone which gives origin to the muscles for turning the wrist (the Supinator muscles); and the prominence and the length of the ridge or crest, situated on the lower and outer side, from which these muscles arise, at once prove their strength, and that the paw had free motion. Arm-bone of Bear. Therefore, on finding the hume- rus thus characterised, we conclude that it belonged to an animal with sharp moveable claws—that, in all probability, it is the remains of a bear. But, suppose that the upper head of the bone has a diffe- rent character: that the tu- bercles project, so as to limit the motion in every direction but one, and that the articu- lating surface is less regularly convex. On inspecting the lower extremity of such a bone, we shall perceive that the grooves into which the bones of the fore-arm are socketed, are hollowed out so deeply that the joint could only have the motion of a simple hinge; and neither the form of the articulating sur- face, (which is here called tro- Arm-bonc of Horse. chlea,) nor the crest or spine