Signor Sarti's Florentine anatomical models. : Popular description of two full-length figures, Venus & Adonis, illustrative of the anatomy of the human frame.

Date:: [1850?]

Credit: Signor Sarti's Florentine anatomical models. : Popular description of two full-length figures, Venus & Adonis, illustrative of the anatomy of the human frame. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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18/34 page 16

V the stomach. The remainder of the abdominal cavity is hidden by the great omentum, which consists of four layers of peritoneum, having a great quantity of fat deposited between them, and branches of arteries and veins ramifying on their surface. Below this may be seen the bladder and uterus. By next removing the anterior portions of the lungs, we can examine their internal structure, and the way in which the air and blood-vessels enter. The trachea or wind-pipe, a tube consisting of eighteen or twenty cartilaginous rings, united by an elastic membrane, divides into the bronchi, which ultimately terminate in the air cells. The arteries are, the pulmonary, which convey the blood from the heart to be oxygenated ; and the bronchial for the nourishment of the viscus itself. The veins are, the pulmonary, to return the vivified fiuid to the centre of circulation; and the bronchial, which terminate on one side in the vena azygos, on the other, in the superior inter-costal vein. Mechanism of the Heaet.—On reviewing the mechanism of the heart every refiecting mind must be struck with the admirable adaptation and suitableness of its several parts, and also the har¬ mony of its operations. How important is the least portion of its complex machinery! If but a thread connected with the valves be broken, or one of its slightest membranes burst; if a single valve omitted to fall down before the retrograde current of blood, or became inverted, the vital functions could no longer be carried on; the vast machinery of the whole animal frame would be immediately deranged, and death necessarily ensue! Who could suppose that an apparatus so complex, so easily deranged, and which is thrown into action considerably more than a hundred thousand times a-day, should yet continue, unimpaired, for fifty, eighty, or a hundred years? How insignificant and imperfect must appear the most admirable piece of mechanism constructed by man when compared to this! What piece of mechanism, exerting so much power, could bear such velocity for one year? Yet so perfect is this apparatus, and so well fitted is all its parts, that its rapid motions never, during health, disturb even the tender babe, in whose breast it beats perhaps a hundred and fifty thousand times a-day. The heart is a hollow muscle placed between the lungs, and en¬ closed in the sac of the pericardium, or covering of the heart. This membrane consists of two layers; the external being fibrous ; the internal, serous, and secreting the fluid of the pericardium. It is seen detached from the lower part, and firmly investing the great vessels above. The heart is placed obliquely in the centre of the chest, with its apex pointing to the left side. The coronary arteries and veins are seen ramifying on its sur¬ face to supply its substance with the vital fluid : for the heart does not receive nourishment from the blood which is constantly cir-

Signor Sarti's Florentine anatomical models. : Popular description of two full-length figures, Venus & Adonis, illustrative of the anatomy of the human frame.

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