Volume 1

The anatomy of the human body.

  • Bell, John, 1763-1820.
Date:
1797
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The anatomy of the human body. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

    48/506 (page 6)
    8 OF THE FORMATION ginal bone, were in bo degree dependent on the peri- ofteum, but were generated from the internal veffels of the bone itfelf: That the periofteum did indeed ap- pear as early as the cartilage which is to produce the bone, feeming to bound the cartilage, and give it form; but that the periofteum was at firft but a loofe tifTiie of cellular fubftanoe, without the appearance of vefllds, or any mark of blood, adhering chiefly to the heads or procelTes, while it hardly touched the body of the bone. He alfo found that the bone grew, became vafcular, had a free circulation of red blood, and that then only the vefTels of the periofteum began to carry red blood, or to adhere to the bone. We know that the bones begin to form in fmall nuclei, in the very centre of their cartilage, or in the very centre of the yet fluid callus, far from the furface, where they might be affifted by the periofteum ; and that oflification begins firft in ' the middle of the long bones, where the periofteum does not adhere, and is formed much later in the heads and proceflfeSj whofe connection with the periofteum is very clofe. Thus has the formation of bone been falfely attri- buted to a gelatinous efFufion, gradually hardened ; or to that blood which mult be poured out from the rup- tured vefiels round a fractured bone; or to the indura^ tion and change of the periofteum, d'epofiting layer after layer, till it1 completed the form of the bone. But when, neglecting- theory, we let ourfelves to ex- amine, with an unbiafted judgment, the procefs of na- ture in forming the bones, as in the chick, or in refto- ring them, as in broken limbs, a fucceflion of pheno- mena prefent themfelves, the mod orderly, beautiful, >np; '. anc\