A lecture on muscular motion : read at the Royal Society, the 13th and 20th of November, 1788 / by Gilbert Blane.

  • Blane, Gilbert, Sir, 1749-1834.
Date:
[1788]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A lecture on muscular motion : read at the Royal Society, the 13th and 20th of November, 1788 / by Gilbert Blane. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    ledge which, being considered as belonging to particular profeffions, appear lefs iriterefting to men who entertain a tafte for general fcience ; and this has in fome meafure been the cafe with inquiries relating to the animal ceconomy. But when we confider the rank which animated beings hold in the fcale of Nature, and that Muf- cular Motion involves fome of the moft important circumftances relating to them, it cannot be denied that this is a fubject highly interefting, as a branch of natural knowledge in general, indepen- dent of its utility as lubfervient to medicine. For though fenfitive beings bear no affignable proportion to the great volume of the ma- terial world, yet as man belongs to this clafs of exigence, and as all other existence would feem to be created in vain, unlefs there were beings capable of perception and enjoyment, the inveftigation of animal nature appears to be of the utmoft importance, not only as the grounds of a ufeful art, but as an object of philofophical curiofity. Extenfive in- Mufcular motion is juftly deemed an important and a characteristic tfluenceof muf- m . cuiar power in attribute of animated beings, not only as conferring that loco-mo- the animal ■ . . iccononiy. tive faculty peculiar to animals, and that power by which they are enabled to exercife a command over external objects, but alfo as it conftitutes that energy by which the motion of the fluids and all the internal functions of the body are carried on. For we are to confider as mufcles not only thofe large manes of flefh which com- pofe fo great a proportion of the whole bulk of the body, but like- wife all the minuter organs fubfervient to circulation, nutrition, and fecretion ; fince not only the heart itfelf, but the whole vafcu- lar fyftem and the interlines, owe their action to certain powers of irritability and contractility peculiar to mufcular fibres. In