Human osteology : comprising a description of the bones with delineations of the attachments of the muscles, the general and microscopic structure of bone and its development / by Luther Holden.

  • Luther Holden
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Human osteology : comprising a description of the bones with delineations of the attachments of the muscles, the general and microscopic structure of bone and its development / by Luther Holden. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    22/450 page 2
    e.g. the skull for the protection of the brain ; the vertebral canal for the protection of the spinal cord; the orbits for the protection of the e,yes; the chambers in the temporal bone for the protection of the internal ear; the chest for the protection of the heart and lungs, &c.: they form the joints for the locomotion of the whole body, as well as for the movement of its individual parts: they form levers for the action of the muscles. General Com- ^one is composed of a basis of animal matter POSITION OF Bone, impregnated with 'bone earth' or phosphate of Ts Analysis. lime. The first ingredient makes it tenacious and elastic; the second gives it the requisite hardness. The analysis is easily made. Place a bone in a solution of one part of dilute hydrochloric acid to five or six of distilled water; in a few days all the earthy part will be dissolved out by the acid, and the animal part will be left. The bone will be scarcely altered in shape or colour, but it can be bent and twisted in any direction. To get rid of the animal matter, we have merely to boil the bone for a long time; or the bone may be calcined till all the animal matter is burnt out. In either of these ways the animal constituent of the bone will be removed, and nothing left but the earthy. The animal matter consists of gelatin (or glutin), which is nearly all soluble in boiling water. Everyone knows that soup may be made out of bones. Notwithstanding their antiquity, fossil bones are found to contain nearly as much animal matter as recent bones. Grimbernat made soup from the gelatin of the mastodon's tootl:, as Dr. Buck- land afterwards did from the fossil bones of the hysena. As to the relative proportions of the animal Kelative Peo- poRTioNs OP THE earthy matter in bone, the best chemists Animal and agree that the animal part forms about one third, Eabthy Mattes, ^.j^^ earthy two thirds. Are these proportions con- stant ? Do they vary at different periods of Ufe, and in different bones of the skeleton ? It is the generally received opinion that they do vary. It is believed that the animal element predominates in the bones at the beginning of life, and the earthy element at the decline. This is assigned as the reason why the bones of children are so elastic, so liable to be indented, as by a blow on their skull- cap, and to bend like a green stick ratlier than break like the
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3