Essays and observations on natural history, anatomy, physiology, psychology, and geology / by John Hunter, being his posthumous papers on those subjects, arranged and revised, with notes ; to which are added the introductory lectures on the Hunterian collection of fossil remains delivered in the theatre of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, March 8th, 10th and 12th, 1855 / by Richard Owen.

John Hunter

Date:: 1861

Credit: Essays and observations on natural history, anatomy, physiology, psychology, and geology / by John Hunter, being his posthumous papers on those subjects, arranged and revised, with notes ; to which are added the introductory lectures on the Hunterian collection of fossil remains delivered in the theatre of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, March 8th, 10th and 12th, 1855 / by Richard Owen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$cavity of the pelvis not at all diminished: both could not have been done in any other way. The canal of, the spine is largest in the neck and loins1. This answers two purposes; first, it allows a greater motion in those parts without the medulla being hurt; secondly, it makes the parts stronger with the same quantity of matter: this is most remarkable in the loins. In man the crooks of the spine vary in different parts, at different ages, of the same person. In the child it is most in the back, and is backward; owing, perhaps, to the weight of head; in the adult it is as much in the loins and is forward. This, perhaps, is owing to the weight of the thorax and head, and the loins being the most moveable part. The ligaments between the vertebrae are stronger externally in pro- portion as they are removed from the centre of motion. The trunk is made up of three parts, the head, thorax, and pelvis— all at a distance from one another; and this is common to all qua- drupeds. It was necessary that these parts should have motion; there- fore they are placed at some distance from one another, which makes the necessity for the neck and the loins. The back-bones of animals differ very much respecting motion, and especially the degree of curving; they might be divided into the straight and curved. Horses, elephants, rhinoceroses, and ruminating quadrupeds, which only stand or lie, have spines of the straight kind. However, there is a gradation between the straight and the curved spine. The curved or bendible spine belongs to those animals which can sit, either iipright as in man, or bowed forward; the monkey, dog, &c. forming the gradation between the one and the other. Animals that have very long bodies, and are small2, generally have their backs bent upwards, archways: the use of this must be to sup- port the body as an arch is supported. In quadrupeds and birds the ilium is a long bone, situated nearly at right angles with the thigh-bone, crossing its head like the upper part of the letter T; giving origin, along its whole sweep, but principally at its ends, to muscles which flex and extend the thigh-bone. The middle part of the ilium is so near the joint as to give but a small surface for 1 [ Vide Mr. Henry Earle's paper thirty years after Mr. Hunter's death, for this single fact, Phil. Trans. 1822 or 1823.—W. C. Mr. Earle also regarded the ex- pansion at the two ends of the neural canal in the neck-vertebra of birds as an im- portant element of his paper.—E. O.] 2 [See the skeleton of the marten [Mustela Martes], No. 4152, and that of the sable \_Mustela zibellina], No. 4168, Hunterian Osteol. Series.]$

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