Bones

“ His body has long since mouldered away and mingled with the parent earth,—this skull alone remains; and yet the time will surely come, and cannot be far distant, when "the bones shall come together—bone to his bone"; when the sinews and the flesh shall come upon them, the skin cover them, and the breath entering the body the dead shall live! ”

“ A skull here—a rib there—bones scattered about as the wild beasts left them after the horrible feast. The clean-picked skull grins and stares—every bone and scattered lock of hair has its story of a tragedy. ”

“ Incredible as it used to seem when, in school, we repeated the number of bones, it now became no longer a wonder, and the only marvel was, how some of the smallest on the list could contain so large an ache. I used to lie and speculate how one slender woman could possibly conceal so many bones under the skin. ”

“ These loose-hung bones seem shapely still, and tall,—
⁠Didst ever see a woman's bones, my lord?"
Often, God help me! I remember when
⁠I was a simple boy, fifteen years old,
The Jacquerie froze up the blood of men
⁠With their fell deeds, not fit now to be told:
God help again! ”

“ His cheek bones project fearfully, and his large temples seem, by the ghastly skin which is drawn tight about them, to remind one of those of a skeleton, were it not that the image is made still more appalling by the existence of life. ”

“ The body—that of one not yet much past the middle of life, and with fair complexion and comely features—was so emaciated, that you might have counted the ribs merely by the eye; and all those parts where the bones are naturally near the surface exhibited a sharpness which suggested the fancy, that as you may see a phosphorescent skeleton through the glow, you beheld in the candle-light the figure of death under the thin covering of the bones. ”

“ The geologist finds a fossil skeleton. His acquaintance with anatomy enables him to pronounce that the objects found are bones. He sees cylinders, condyles, cavities for the marrow, scars of attachment of muscles and tendons, foramina for the passage of nerves and blood-vessels; he finds the internal structure, no less than the form and surface, such as to leave not a doubt that these are real bones. Now universal experience has taught him that bones imply the existence of flesh; that flesh implies blood; that blood implies life; that life implies time. ”

“ I saw an old bone in the woods covered with lichens, which looked like the bone of an old settler, which yet some little animal had recently gnawed. I saw plainly the marks of its teeth, so indefatigable is nature to strip the flesh from bones, and return them to dust again. No little rambling beast can go by some dry and ancient bone, but he must turn aside and try his teeth upon it. An old bone is knocked about till it becomes dust; nature has no mercy on it. ”

“ My yearning is, 'O that he may escape the rocks on which I split—years wasted, any one of which would have given a first grounding in anatomy, indispensable anatomy, to have gone with the antique. The bones are the master-key; the marrowless bones are the talisman of all life and power in Art. ”

“ To this rock, high like a tower, a man was formerly chained, whose bones are yet preserved in the chains. Both bones and chains are in a high state of preservation. The bones of the arms are from seven to eight cubits in length, of an astonishing thickness. The skull is like the cupola of a bath, and a man may creep in and out without pain through the eye-holes. ”

“ The room was full of dead men's bones and the walls were splashed and the floor was covered with human blood. In one corner skull upon skull rose to the ceiling, in another was a heap of arm bones, in another a heap of leg bones. ”

“ Around all of these guide-boards, as far as the eye can reach, the ground is covered with mountains of human bones, crumbling and bleaching in the rain and sun. They are the bones of murdered men and women—fathers, mothers and babes. ”

“ The bones are spread in a large room, where you can work at your leisure, undisturbed by any mortal, from morning till night, taking your breakfast and dinner with us. It is a precious collection, consisting of upwards of three hundred bones, few of them of the large kinds which are already possessed. ”

“ I have often visited the spot, which can truly be called "the place of skulls." Bones of all sizes, from the tender infant who nestled in its mother's arms, to the stout, athletic warrior, are strewn upon the ground. ”

“ I find that the bones are human bones, and are, in my opinion, all parts of the same person. They form a skeleton which is complete with the exception of the skull, the third finger of the left hand, the knee-caps, and the leg-bones—I mean the bones between the knees and the ankles. ”

“ Our mountains and lone valleys hold many a skeleton whose unburied, unrecorded bones are the only relics and proofs of a live, lingering death, preceded by hours of pain and misery. Mine was the merest foretaste of their hardships and sufferings, and it is my chief desire that this story shall help to a clearer realization of the perils, hardships, and sufferings of our unknown pioneers. ”

“ It may be stated here also that these scattered human bones, the flints and broken pieces of pottery, together with the shells and bones of animals, were all of them above the depth where the skeleton was found, as though they were mixed with the earth of which the mound was built. ”

“ The scattered human bones were all of them more or less broken, the breaking seeming to have been done when the bones were fresh. In one or two instances only were we able to find the different pieces of the same bone. ”

“ There is a geometrical precision, a scientific classification, an artistic design about the piles of skulls, thigh bones, shin bones, and all the bones that form the human skeleton, ranged as they are, row above row, and forming the surface of endless galleries, that gives a very opposite impression to that occasioned by the disorder and decay in which we invariably invest mortality. ”

“ The bones which have been found hitherto (for we are dealing with a skeleton, not with a body) have been exclusively those which are useless for personal identification; which is, in itself, a rather curious and striking fact. ”

“ A child, by pressing its foot against the skull which had been raised entire, crushed it to pieces like the other; and the whole of the bones had become so light and porous, that when first seen by the writer, some of the smaller fragments were tumbling over the sward before a light breeze, like withered leaves, or pieces of fungous wood. ”

“ Bones and Tongues Bones are strange things. One would suppose that they knew nothing at all about school affairs, but they do. Even Jacob Poot's bones, buried as they were in flesh, were sharp in the matter of study hours. ”

“ Every vertebra and rib, and even the small bones of the head and the formidable, recurved teeth, were perfect, while in all the great skeleton there was not a fragment of flesh nor a scale of the skin remaining. ”

“ Also, they agreed, That when an Human Life was restored, the bones did first fill with some Oylie Juyces; and from the bones, and the sap or juyce of the bones, did all the Parts belonging to a Human Creature, spring forth, and grow up to Maturity: and certainly, Not to disturb the Bones of the dead, was a Holy and Religious Charge to Human Creatures. ”

“ The occasional discovery of human bones and works of art in any stratum, within a few feet of the surface, affords no certain evidence of such remains being coeval with the matrix in which they are deposited. The universal practice of interring the dead, and frequent custom of placing various instruments and utensils in the ground with them, offer a ready explanation of the presence of bones of men in situations accessible for the purposes of burial. ”

“ No other complete skeleton was found in the mound, though pieces of human bones representing nearly all parts of the skeleton were scattered through different parts of the structure, together with the bones of other animals. ”

“ Bones are strips of soft body-stuff soaked with lime and hardened, like bricklayer's mortar, or concrete. [24] When you know the shape of the body, you know the bones; for they simply form a shell over the head and run like cores, or piths, down the centre of the back, and down each joint of the limbs. ”

“ Have any bones of man been found, and to what compass-point was the upper part of the skull directed? or the bones of inferior animals, or any wedge or hatchet-like objects of stone or metal—any shields, spears, swords, or other weapons—arrow-heads or knives of bone and flint—pottery, bone-pins, rings, beads, bracelets, collars, coins, been discovered under or near any such monuments as above designated, or in other localities? ”

“ The ghastly bones on the floor interested me, as a medical man, the more so because one of the skeletons—and there were three—was certainly that of a man, who, when alive, must have stood over six feet high. ”

“ The Bones in After Life. Popular impression attributes a less share of life, or a lower grade of vitality, to the bones than to any other part of the body. But really they have their own circulation and nutrition, and even nervous relations. Thus, bones are the seat of active vital processes, not only during childhood, but also in adult life, and in fact throughout life, except perhaps in extreme old age. The final knitting together of the ends of some of the bones with their shafts does not occur until somewhat late in life. ”

“ The Skeleton.—All the bones of an animal, when placed properly together, have nearly the shape of the body, and are called the skeleton (skel ́-e-ton) . The skeleton forms the framework of the body, just as the heavy timbers of a house form its framework. It supports all the parts.
5. The Skull.—The bony part of the head is called the skull. In the skull is a hollow place or chamber. You know that a rich man often has a strong room or box in his fine house, in which to keep his gold and other valuable things. The chamber in the skull is the strong-room of the body. ”

“ Bones make the body stiff and strong, and give it shape. Long bones reach through the arms and legs, and little bones reach down the fingers and toes. Rounded plates of bone form the head, and a pile of bony rings makes up the backbone. Each bone is built to fit exactly into its own place and to do its own work. In all there are over two hundred bones in the body. ”

“ By A. Keith, M.D., LL.D., Conservator of Museum and Hunterian Professor, Royal College of Surgeons. (Illustrated.) “It literally makes the ‘dry bones’ to live. It will certainly take a high place among the classics of popular science.”—Manchester Guardian. ”

“ For our skull is as a kind of flower-pot, and holds the soil from which we spring, that is to say the brain; our mouth and stomach are roots, in two stories or stages; our bones are the trellis-work to which we cling while going about in [Pg 138] search of sustenance for our roots; or they are as the woody trunk of a tree; we are the nerves which are rooted in the brain, and which draw thence the sustenance which is supplied it by the stomach; our lungs are leaves which are folded up within us, as the blossom of a fig is hidden within the fruit itself. ”

“ And all the while the burning lime Eats flesh and bone away, It eats the brittle bone by night, And the soft flesh by the day, It eats the flesh and bones by turns, But it eats the heart alway. ”

“ The bones are as completely freed from flesh as if they had been anatomised, and perfectly white and dry. The head can nowhere be found. The arms, one thigh and a leg were all that remained in the clothes. ”

“ In each leg and foot, including the bones of the pelvis, there are thirty-one bones, making sixty-two in the pelvis, legs and feet. So that the adult human skeleton consists of two hundred and six bones, besides the thirty-two teeth. ”

“ One of us asked if they had any human bones with the flesh remaining upon them, and upon their answering us that all had been eaten, we affected to disbelieve that the bones were human, and said that they were the bones of a dog ”

“ Lastly, with relation to their Use; some serve to support and carry the whole Body, as the Leg-Bones, and others are appointed to grind the Meat, as the Teeth; or else to form some Cavity, as the Skull-Bone, and those of the Ribs.
What are the Parts to be distinguished in the Bones?
They are the Body, the Ends, the Heads, the Neck, the Apophyses, the Epiphyses, the Condyli or Productions, the Cavities, the Supercilia or Lips, and the Ridges.
The Body is the greatest Part, and the middle of the Bone; the Ends are the two Extremities; the Heads are the great Protuberances at the Extremities ”

“ From the few scattered bones, so to speak, which lay buried, and for the most part broken, partly in the depths of the catacombs themselves, partly in the Acts of the Martyrs, the Liber Pontificalis, and a few other records of ecclesiastical history, he has reconstructed with consummate skill the complete skeleton, if we should not rather say has reproduced the whole body, and set it full of life and vigor before us. ”

“ This is more especially the case with respect to the skeleton, which forms the foundation of all the other mechanisms within the body, and is of the highest importance in the history of fossil animals, of which we rarely find any other remains besides the bones, and teeth, and the scaly or osseous integuments. ”

“ But if a judicious selection of the bones were deposited in a suitable place, together with some object clearly identifiable as appertaining to the deceased, it seemed to me that the difficulty would be met. ”

“ Here, their bones are sometimes stored up and visited at set periods. Or, when a person noted for his wisdom has died, his head, when partially decomposed, is often cut off and suspended, so as to drip upon a mass of chalk placed underneath. ”