Fatigue / by A. Mosso ; translated by Margaret Drummond and W.B. Drummond.

  • Mosso, A. (Angelo), 1846-1910.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Fatigue / by A. Mosso ; translated by Margaret Drummond and W.B. Drummond. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    books, La Machine Animate and Le Vol des Oiseaux, he has treated the questions of terrestrial and aerial locomotion in such masterly fashion that they will always remain models of popular science. No one has gone further than Marey in the analysis of the mechanism on which the flight of birds depends. His investigation of movement, the instruments he has constructed to register it, the novelty and in- genuity of his methods, his application of instan- taneous photography to the exact study of very rapid motion, these things mark an epoch in science. Comparative anatomy shows that a bird's wings are analogous to our arms and to the fore-legs of the mammalia. The muscles which move the wings cover the whole anterior part of the thorax, and are firmly attached to the sternum, which itself attains an enormous development, and which by means of a strong ridge running along it doubles the surface to which the muscular fibres are attached. In man the attachment of the pectoral muscles extends from the collar bone to below the breast. But, although better developed than in other animals, they are very f small in comparison with those of birds, in which the weight of the two pectoral muscles is a sixth part of \ the total weight of the body. This is, however, necessary in the case of creatures whose element is air. Every one knows how fatiguing it is to walk on fine dry sand or on snow. Our feet sink in, and at every step part of our muscular force is used up in rinding firm foothold, and in exercising pressure to enable us to carry our body forward. From this we can understand how much greater is the difficulty of