If you look carefully you will see that the cavity is divided into two
by a cross partition (Fig. 1, _B_) called the =diaphragm=. The part =below=
the diaphragm is the larger of the two, and is called the =abdomen= or
belly; in it you will see a large dark red mass, which is the =liver=
(_L_). Near the liver is the smooth pale =stomach= (_M_), and filling up
the rest of the abdomen you will see the coils of the =intestine= or
bowel, very narrow in some parts (_O_), very broad (_P_ _Q_), broader
even than the stomach, in others. If you pull the bowels on one side as
you easily can do, you will find lying underneath them two small
brownish red lumps, one on each side. These are the =kidneys=.
In the smaller cavity =above= the diaphragm, called the =thorax= or chest,
you will see in the middle the =heart= (_C_), and on each side of the
heart two pink bodies, which when you squeeze them feel spongy. These
are the two =lungs= (_G_). You will notice that the heart and lungs do not
fill up the cavity of the chest nearly so much as the liver, stomach,
bowels, &c. fill up the cavity of the belly. In fact, in the chest
there seems to be a large empty space. But as we shall see further on,
the lungs did quite fill the chest before you opened it, but shrank up
very much directly you cut into it, and so left the great space you see.
=9.= The trunk then is really a great chamber containing what are called
the =viscera=, and divided into an upper and lower half, the upper half
being filled with the heart and lungs, the lower with the liver,
stomach, bowels, and some other organs. In front the abdomen is covered
by skin and muscle only. But if all the sides of the trunk were made of
such soft material it would be then a mere bag which could never keep
its shape unless it were stuffed quite full. Some part of it must be
strengthened and stiffened. And indeed the trunk is not a bag with soft
yielding sides, but a box with walls which are in part firm and hard.
You noticed that when you were cutting through the front of the chest
you had to cut through several hard places. These were the =ribs= (Fig. 1,
_a_), made either of hard bone or of a softer gristly substance called
=cartilage=. And if you take away all the viscera from the cavity of the
trunk and pass your finger along the back of the cavity, you will feel
all the way down from the neck to the legs a hard part. This is the
=backbone= or =vertebral column=. When you want to make a straw man stand
upright you run a pole right through him to give him support. Such a
support is the backbone to your own body, keeping the trunk from falling
together.
In the abdomen nothing more is wanted than this backbone, the sides and
front of the cavity being covered in with skin and muscle only. In the
chest the sides are strengthened by the ribs, long thin hoops of bone
which are fastened to the backbone behind and meet in front in a firm
hard part, partly bone, partly cartilage, called the =sternum=.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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