Galen on anatomical procedures : de Anatomicis administrationibus / translation of the surviving books with introduction and notes by Charles Singer.

  • Galen
Date:
1956
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: Galen on anatomical procedures : de Anatomicis administrationibus / translation of the surviving books with introduction and notes by Charles Singer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    45/326 (page 13)
    already shown the common error of many who claim to be anatomists, in dissecting animals long dead, with parts dry and tense. They stretch the overlying skin, or the membranes or other tissues, and thus displace the underlying parts, or again pull and bend the fingers by the tendon inserted into the palm [palmaris lon^us]. Yet they themselves say that muscle or tendon must be attached to the bone that is to be moved. They speak erroneously (forgetting what they have themselves rightly said) when they assert that the fingers are bent by the tendon even when it has no attachment to the bone. We must now explain how to proceed, avoiding their errors. 244 Obviously we must first of all remove all the outer skin from the arm and fingers excepting only the palm, then carefully strip the parts in the region of the wrist/joint. The sharp lancet is suitable for removing such tissues so that no membrane may be left behind after removal of skin, just as the blunt is useful for sundering muscles. The membranes being removed, the first muscle [encoun/ tered] is on the surface of the mid forearm [palmaris lon^us]. Of it I shall speak more fully later [pp. 14^15]. You will see liga^ ments [retinacula] lying across the articulations, both on the inside [flexor surface] and on the outside [extensor surface] of the limb. Under them lie the heads of the tendons, on the inner^^ side those that flex the fingers, on the outer those that extend them. On either side of the ligaments on the inner side [of the arm] is a muscle flexing the wrist. The one is in a line with the little finger [flexor carpi ulnaris] the othct with the index [flexor carpi radialis]. On the outside, there is the single muscle 24s in the forearm which extends the wrist [extensor carpi ulnaris] as well as two in the ulna* both moving the wrist. The latter move also the thumb, and I said [p. 11] that it was better to describe here two muscles rather than one. The tendonsf of all the muscles on the outside which I have mentioned have liga/ ments transversely round them [extensor retinaculum], * Text says 'radius*, f Text says 'heads'.