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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    clothing, bad air, or languid health, fliould caufe that dreadful difeafe, when more or lefs heat, during the incubation of a chick, affects the growth of its bones ; when the ficknefs of a creature\ during our experi- ments, protracts the growth of callus ; when, in the accidents of pregnancy, of profufe fuppuration, or of languid health, the knitting of broken bones is delay- ed, or wholly prevented. This procefs, fo difficult and flow, is affifted by eve- ry provifion of nature. The progrefs of the whole is flow, that as long as the body increafes in ftature* the bones alfb may grow ; but it is aflifted in,the in- dividual parts, where fome are flow ; fome rapid in their growth ; fome delayed, as the heads of joints, that their bones may be allowed to extend ; and others haftened, as the pelvis* that they may acquire their perfect lize early in life. Oflification is affifted by the foftnefs of the cartilaginous bed in which the bone is formed; by thofe large and permeable veflels which carry ealily the groffer parts of the b'ood ; by a quick and powerful abforption, which all along is modelling the bone ; and, molt of all, by being formed in detach- ed points, multiplied and crowded together, wherever much bone is required. There Lb one central ring fir ft offified in a long bone, as of the leg or arm; the heads or ends of the bone are at firft^mere cartilage, but they alfo foon begin to offify; the body ftretches in a radiated form towards either head; the heads offifying each in its centre, al- fo ftretch towards the bone ; the heads meet the body, and join to it'; a thin cartilage only is interpofed, which grows gradually thinner till the twentieth year, and