The hand : its mechanism and vital endowments as evincing design / by Sir Charles Bell.

Date:
1833
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The hand : its mechanism and vital endowments as evincing design / by Sir Charles Bell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    39/342 (page 17)
    THE HAND, ITS MECHANISM, ETC. just as the tail in some species is converted into a hand, and is as useful an instrument of suspension as any of the four extremities.* The armed extremities of a variety of animals give them great advantages ; but if man pos- sessed any similar provisions, he would forfeit his sovereignty over all. As Galen, long since, observed, “ did man possess the natural armour of * This is a sketch of the Coaita, or Spider Monkey, so called from the extraordinary length of its extremities, and its motions. The tail answers all the purposes of a hand, and the animal throws itself about from branch to branch, sometimes swinging from the foot, sometimes by the hand, but oftener and with a greater reach by the tail. The prehensile part of the tail is covered only with skin, forming an organ of touch, as discriminating as the hand. The Caraya, or Black howling monkey of Cumana, when shot,