General Anatomy, Applied to Physiology and Medicine, Vol. 1 (of 3)Bichat, Xavier
Science
General Anatomy, Applied to Physiology and Medicine, Vol. 1 (of 3)
Bichat, Xavier
Human anatomy; Human physiology
It is very abundant in every part. The orbits are filled with it;
the excavation of the cheeks, that is bounded by the buccinator and
masseter muscles, the zygomatic and malar bones, contain much of it:
all the neighbouring parts of the tongue are furnished with it. The
nasal cavities only and their sinuses, which a mucous surface covers,
that is almost immediately attached to the bone, have but a small
quantity of it.
The facial cellular texture contributes to the beauty and harmony of
the countenance, the features of which, examined closely, show that
the muscles draw in an unpleasant manner across the skin, when there
is no fat, and consequently that there is too great a depression. In
an opposite state, there is a kind of bloating that is disagreeable;
a middle state is the most favourable to the beauty of the face.
This texture is almost wholly disconnected with expression, which is
effected by the muscles. Thus the different passions are delineated
with nearly the same features upon a fat and a lean face. Only these
features are less marked in the first than the second, because in the
last more wrinkles are formed than in the other, by the contraction of
the same muscles.
The cellular texture is in greater or less quantity in the face in
different people. Every one knows that some are always thin in this
part, who are fat in the rest of the body. From the dissection of the
bodies of such persons, I have found that it arises from the small
quantity of cellular texture it contains in proportion to the other
parts. In other individuals, there is an opposite state, a fulness
of the face with a lean body, a striking contrast, and which arises
without doubt from a cause opposite to the first.
It is to the greater proportion of cellular texture, much more than to
the development of the muscles, that must be attributed the evident
thickness of certain parts of the face, in different species of the
human race, that, for example, of the lips and the alæ of the nose in
negroes, &c. From the same cause arises the variety in thickness in the
great and small labia pudendi.
The principal communications of the facial cellular texture are made
with the neck by the sub-cutaneous portion of this texture, by that
which accompanies the vessels, and particularly in the triangular space
at the superior part of which is situated the parotid gland. Thus, from
deposits made upon the lateral parts of the face, effusions of pus take
place that often extend to the neck. In emphysema, the air of which
comes from the chest, after the neck is swelled, the air passes to the
face principally by the sides. There are still great communications of
cellular texture between the neck and the face, by the spaces between
the muscles that are attached to the base of the tongue.
II. _Cellular system of the trunk._
It varies in its proportions, as we examine the regions of the spine,
the neck, the chest, the abdomen, and pelvis.
_Vertebral cellular texture._
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