A treatise on the human skeleton (including the joints) / by George Murray Humphry.
- George Murray Humphry
- Date:
- 1858
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A treatise on the human skeleton (including the joints) / by George Murray Humphry. 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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![curve being generally on the side on which the most powerful mnscles are situated, e.g. on the back part of the thigh and leg, and on the fore part of the arm and forearm. As a general rule, these flexures are more marked in short persons than in the tall; and the greater proportionate muscular strength of the former, constituting a sort of compensation for the deficiency of their stature, is, in part, attributable to the greater curvature of their bones. Roughnesses Bcsidcs the ridgcs above mentioned, which are in- and Processes, -fended to Strengthen the shafts, there are many rough- nesses and projecting processes which have relation to the attach- ment of muscles, ligaments, and other ministers of locomotion. They are found, not along the length of the bones where the mus- cular fibres chiefly arise, so much as near the ends of the bones where the tendinous prolongations of the muscles and the liga- ments are im]flanted. They serve the purpose of increasing the extent of surface and connexion between the tendons and the bones, thereby strengthening that connexion to such a degree that it rarely or never gives way. Either the tendon itself may be snapped, or the process of bone into which it is implanted may be torn off; but the bond of union between the two is very rarely severed, provided the force be applied in the direction in which the tendon or ligament is intended to resist. It is neces- sary to add the latter proviso because, when a fibrous strnctm-e is pulled in an opposite direction to that in which it is calculated to resist traction, it may sometimes be torn away from the bone without much difficulty. Such great strength is rendered necessary by the fact that each tendinous fibre is the cord by which many mus- cular fibres are attached to the bone, and it has, therefore, to bear a considerable pull dming the contractions of the muscle. It results from this, that a rough spot on a bone indicates it to be a point of attachment not of muscular but of tendinous or ligamentous fibres. For instance, the fleshy fibres of the subscapularis muscle are attached, not to the rouo-h ridges on the under surface of the scapula, but to the smooth interspaces which the bone presents; the ridges being reserved for the tendinous intersecting bands of the muscle and for the processes of the subscapular fascia.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21060058_0025.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
