Volume 1

Lectures on comparative anatomy in which are explained the preparations in the Hunterian collection ... To which is subjoined: Synopsis systematis regni animalis nunc primum ex ovi modificationibus propositi. [Supplement] / By Sir Everard Home, bart.

  • Everard Home
Date:
1814-1828
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on comparative anatomy in which are explained the preparations in the Hunterian collection ... To which is subjoined: Synopsis systematis regni animalis nunc primum ex ovi modificationibus propositi. [Supplement] / By Sir Everard Home, bart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    61/514 (page 39)
    C 39] LECTURE III. On the inherent Powers, and various Arrangements of muscular Fibres. In the preceding Lecture the general properties of muscles were considered, and the different appearances which they put on in different animals. I shall now prosecute this subject, and endeavour to point out certain powers that are inherent in them, and explain the peculiar advantages derived from the various arrangements that are met with in the fasciculi of their fibres. The degree of contraction of a muscular fibre is not limited to that which usually takes place: there is a power inherent in muscles, by which they can increase or diminish the ordinary extent of their contractions: this is very curious, and must arise from some change going on in the muscle itself. The usual quantity of contraction which takes place in the fibres of the muscles in the different motions of the human body, is adapted in the nicest manner to the circumstances in which the muscle is placed, and the quantity of contraction appears to be limited, by the fibres having no power of becom- ing shorter. We find, however, from observation, that when the extent of motion in a joint, or the distance between the fixed points of a muscle, is accidentally altered, the muscle acquires a power of adapting its quantity of contraction to the new circumstances which have taken place.