The human foot and the human handHumphry, George Murray, Sir
Science
The human foot and the human hand
Humphry, George Murray, Sir
Foot; Hand
But, even the powers and advantages conferred by nature have often
some drawbacks; and this free play of the arm at the shoulder in man,
of which we are speaking, and the provision for it afforded by the
collar-bone, are no exceptions to the remark. It is necessary for so
great a range of movement that the socket in the shoulder-blade should
be shallow, and that the ligaments which connect the arm-bone with the
blade-bone should be loose. Hence the shoulder-joint is weak as regards
its ability to resist injury. The collar-bone also causes the shoulder
to project so much that it is greatly exposed to injury and often bears
the brunt of a fall. A man is thrown from a horse or is knocked down
upon the ground, and, if anything prevents the hand being stretched
out, the chances are that he falls upon the shoulder. True, the head is
saved thereby; but the shoulder suffers. Hence the shoulder-joint is
more often dislocated than any other; and no bone is more frequently
broken than the collar-bone. Even in little children, in whom,
notwithstanding their many tumbles, the other bones usually contrive to
escape, the collar-bones are often broken; and in grown-up persons the
shoulder is sometimes dislocated by the mere action of the muscles, as
in swimming, or throwing, or lifting a weight above the head.
That you may understand the movements of the shoulder a little more
fully, I will ask you to contrast the drawing (fig. 58), which
shows the position of the blade-bone upon the chest in Man, with the
drawing (fig. 57) of the corresponding parts of the Rhinoceros;
and you will at once recognise several important differences, besides
the presence of the collar-bone in the one and its absence in the other.
[Illustration: Fig. 57. Rhinoceros.]
In the RHINOCEROS the chest is deep, from the back-bone to the
breast-bone, and is flattened at the sides; and the depth of this part
of the trunk is increased, slightly, by the breast-bone projecting,
keel-like, underneath, and, much more, by the spines of the back-bone
running up into a high ridge, above. The blade-bone and the arm-bone
are applied against the flat side of the chest, and lie, lengthways,
between the spine and the breast-bone, nearly parallel with the
broad flat ribs. The blade-bone has no process overhanging the
shoulder-joint, and, as before said, there is no collar-bone. The short
thick arm-bone descends nearly in a line with the blade-bone, and has
huge processes at its upper end for the attachment of muscles. The
parts are designed to bear the great weight of the animal, and to carry
its ponderous head and horn; but the only movement of which they admit
is a sliding of the blade-bone and arm-bone, backwards and forwards,
upon the side of the chest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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