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.

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    rent or white. The offification follows the vend-, burying and hiding thofe veffels by which it is formed : The yellow and opaque part expands and fpreads along the bone: The veffels advance towards the heads of the bones: The whole body of the bone becomes opaque, and there is left only a fmall vafcular circle at either end: the heads are feparated from the body of the bone by a thin cartilage ; and the veffels of the centre, extending flill towards the extremities of the bone, perforate that cartilage, pafs into the head of the bone, and then its offification alfo begins, and a fmall nucleus of offification is formed in its centre. Thus the heads and the body are, at the firft, diftincr. bones formed apart and joined by a cartilage ; and they are not united till the age of fifteen or twenty years. The veffels are feen entering in one large trunk (the nutritious artery) into the middle of the bone : From fification having begun, overtakes the arteries, and hides them, chan- ging the tranfparent and vafcular part of the bone into an opaque white ; how, by peeling off the petiofteum, bloody dots are feen, which (hows a living connection and commerce of veffels betwixt the periofteum and the bone ; how, by tearing up the outer layers of the tender bone, the vafcularity of the inner layers is again expofed. But of all the proofs of the vafcularity of bones and depofition of the bony matter, the mofl beautiful is that of our common preparations ; where, after filling with injection the arteries of an adult bone, by its nutritious vefTels, we, by corroding the bone with mineral acids, diffplve the earth, leaving nothing but the tranfparent gelly, and thus reltore the bone to its original cartilaginous rtate ; then the veffels appear in fuch profufion, that the bone may be compared in vafcula- rity with the foft parts, and it is feen that its arteries were not anni- hilated, but its high vafcularity only concealed by the depofition of the bony, parts.