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

  • Charles Bell
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

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

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    exercise of the tendons, (and their exercise is the act of being pulled upon by the muscles, or having a strain on them,) they get firmer and stronger; but in the failure of muscular activity, they become less capable of resisting the tug made upon them; and if, after a long confinement, a man has some powerful ex- citement to muscular exertion, then the tendon breaks. An old gentleman, whose habits have been staid and sedentary, and who is very guarded in his walk, is upon an annual festival tempted to join the young people in a dance; then he breaks his Undo Achillis. This reminds us that we are speaking of a liv- ing body; and that, in estimating the mechanical properties, we ought not to forget the influence of Life, and the law that the natural exercise of the parts, whether they be active or passive, is the stimulus to the circulation through them, and to their growth and perfection.]