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.

    48/326 (page 16)
    will see] the first and third articulation of each finger bent, as if the tendon were inserted there, and the first bound by the surrounding ligament to the bones.* It has been said in my De ossihus^^ that anatomists call the bones ofthefingers skytalides or phalanges. You will observe their attachments (emphyseis) if you remove the ligament lying around the tendons. The [five] tendons [of the fexor digitorum profundus] which lie underneath rest on the bones of their fingers and fuse with the third phalanx without splitting. The four [of the jiexor digitorum suhlimis] that rest on them are attached to the second bone, as I have said above, but as each passes over the former larger tendon, each splits in two, encircles the tendon lying under it, and is attached to the sides of the second phalanx. The thumb is pecuHar in that 251 nothing [from the Jiexor digitorum suhlimis] reaches it from above nor from the common head, but it forms attachments else^ where. Scrutinize the palm and examine in it the tendon which breaks off from the other four [of the flexor digitorum pro/ fundus] to enter the thumb [flexor pollicis longus]. It does not stop at the first joint as do each of its fellows to the fingers, but passes on to the second joint (corresponding to the third of the phalanges). It moves this, as they do, by its attachment to it. It has a separate sheath round it and when you free it of tendons you must cut this sheath lengthwise with a sharp lancet. If you botch the operation and do not cut straight, you will sever the underlying tendon. For manipulating the tendons from their origins to their sheaths, either let your ape be fairly fresh, before the fingers 252 have time to dry and stiffen and so to resist extension, or freshen them by pouring hot water over them or, if they are only moderately stiff, by kneading and movement. You would learn the function of each more clearly if you were to stretch all the structures around the fingers. Do this with the tendons underlying the [transverse] ligament. * Three lines of text here obscure.