Sacrum

“ The promontory of the sacrum. 4. The anterior surface of the sacrum, on which its transverse lines and foramina are seen. 5. The tip of the coccyx. 6, 6. The iliac fossæ, forming the lateral boundaries of the false pelvis. 7. The anterior superior spinous process of the ilium; left side. 8. The anterior inferior spinous process. 9. The acetabulum. a. The notch of the acetabulum. b. The body of the ischium. c. Its tuberosity. d. The spine of the ischium seen through the obturator foramen. e. The os pubis. f. The symphysis pubis. g. The arch of the pubes. ”

“ The wall of separation between the vagina and rectum. 15. The perineum. 16. The os uteri. 17. Its cervix. 18. The fundus uteri. The cavitas uteri is seen along the center of the organ. 19. The rectum, showing the disposition of its mucous membrane. 20. The anus. 21. The upper part of the rectum, invested by the peritoneum. 22. The recto-uterine fold of the peritoneum. 23. The utero-vesical fold. 24. The reflexion of the peritoneum, from the apex of the bladder upon the urachus to the internal surface of the abdominal parietes. 25. The last lumbar vertebra. 26. The sacrum. ”

“ A demand for a crucial examination of the skull, the heart, lungs, of the chest, the stomach, liver and other organs of the abdomen is made. The septum of the brain, the pericardium of the chest—the diaphragm of the abdomen which is a dividing septum between the abdomen and chest. In this examination we must know the reasons why any organs, vessel or any other substance is located at a given place. We must run with all the rivers of blood that travel through the system. ”

“ Fig. 70.—Diagrammatic dissection of dog-fish (Scyllium) .
sk, Skull; gh, brain; n, nerve cord; ch, notochord; ho, reproductive gland; un, kidney; wk, vertebræ; k, jaw; z, tongue; ks, gill slits; ar, arteries; ph, pharynx; h, heart; lb, liver; m, stomach; mil, spleen; pan, pancreas; vd, intestine, with spiral fold; cöl, body cavity; r, rectum.
The heart has one auricle and one ventricle, except in a single group which we shall afterwards mention. The heart is situated immediately behind the gills, to which the blood is pumped directly by the ventricle. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It has no skull, nor brain, nor eyes, nor jaws, nor heart, nor anything in particular—just transparent muscle, spinal cord, artery gills, stomach and ovaries, with a fringe of feelers about the slit we call the mouth. ”

“ Thus, the skull, together with the bones of the face, shelters the brain and the organs of four senses—sight, hearing, smell, and taste. The chest contains the heart, lungs, and great blood-vessels, while the lower part of the trunk sustains the liver, stomach, and other organs. ”

“ God has covered your bones with flesh. Your flesh is soft and warm. In your flesh there is blood. God has put skin outside, and it covers your flesh and blood like a coat. Now all these things, the bones, and flesh, and blood, and skin, are called your body. ”

“ Every part of the body, with some few exceptions, is crowded with nerves and blood-vessels. The nerves all come from the brain or spinal cord—the vessels from the heart. So that every part of the body is governed by two centres, the heart, and the brain or spinal cord. ”

“ Although the organ called the brain is located in the head, and although that called the heart is in the abdomen, yet some sense of control over bodily motions curiously exists separately in the ganglions of different parts of the body. ”

“ Not only the brain, but also the organs [392] of sense, as the eyes, the nose, the ears, are perfectly symmetrical; and they as well as the other organs of animal life, as the feet and hands, are double, presenting on each side of the body two separate parts which correspond with each other, and produce a symmetry unknown to our vegetative life, the organs of which are, for the most part, merely single, as in the stomach, liver, pancreas, and spleen. ”

“ One of these, the first, characterised as natural, is communicated from the arteries to the veins by their anastomoses, and is primarily associated with the blood, the proper seat or home of which is the liver and veins. The second is the vital spirit, whose seat or dwelling-place is the heart and arteries. The third, the animal spirit, comparable to a ray of light, has its home in the brain and nerves. In each and all of these is the force—energeia—of the one spirit and light of God comprised. ”

“ For the present I will only say and set forth without demonstration—by good leave of the learned and with due respect to the ancients—that the heart, as the beginning, author, source, and origin of everything in the body and the first cause of life, should [67] be held to include the veins and all the arteries and also the contained blood; just as the brain, including all its nerves and sensory organs and spinal marrow, is the one adequate organ of sensation, as the phrase is. ”

“ Those, that are seated in the eyes, or in the gums, the nostrils or the exterior angle of the eye, or in the cavity of the ears, abdomen or the umbilicus, or about any suture of the body, hips, ribs, arm-pits, chest, breasts, sides, or the joints, as well as those, that secrete frothy blood or pus with a gurgling sound, or contain any foreign matter embedded in their inside, are healed only with the greatest difficulty. ”

“ When any physician, doctor, or amulet-maker puts his fingers upon the top of the head, upon the occiput, upon the hands, upon the chest, upon the arms, upon the legs, he communicates (?) with the heart, for its vessels extend to every limb, wherefore it is called the starting-point of every limb. ”

“ But if by the word heart the mere body of the heart, made up of its auricles and ventricles, be understood, then I do not believe that the heart is the fashioner of the blood; neither do I imagine that the blood has powers, properties, motion, or heat, as the gift of the heart; lastly, neither do I admit that the cause of the systole and contraction is the same as that of the diastole or dilatation, whether in the arteries, auricles, or ventricles ”

“ We are flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone, and the same fluid that circulates in our bodies, called blood, once circulated in his veins as it does in ours. As the seeds of grains, vegetables and fruits produce their kind, so man is in the image of God. ”

“ Here our anatomist dwells somewhat at length on the formation of the blood and the part played in digestion by our organs, adding:
“What joy among these dispensing officers of the body when, after their complex work and hard labor, they see this stream of red gold. Each limb separates and opens to assimilate or purify anew this treasure, the blood. The heart, with its musical diastole and systole, subtilizes it so that, met at the ventricle, it is perfection; then, by the veins, it returns from all the limbs. The harmony of Heaven is no greater than that of the body of man. ”

“ The relaxation or softness of an organ is often judged by its flattening on the board, or by its hanging down over the index-finger when this is placed beneath its middle and the organ raised, or by the jelly-like tremors of the organ when the dish containing it is agitated. ”

“ These men regard the heart as a muscle consisting of four cavities, called respectively the auricles and the ventricles, and useful for no other purpose but to aerate the blood; all other meanings of the word they despise or ignore. ”

“ We also notice in man the body cavity or space in which the internal organs rest is divided in two parts by a wall of muscle, the diaphragm, which separates the heart and lungs from the other internal organs. ”

“ We must let blood from the arm, and also detract by the nose, and from the vessels below the tongue. We are also to use the fomentations suitable for inflammations of the head, and cataplasms of a moistening and concocting nature. ”

“ And, first, in fishes, in which the heart consists of but a single ventricle, they having no lungs, the thing is sufficiently manifest. Here the sac, which is situated at the base of the heart, and is the part analogous to the auricle in man, plainly throws the blood into the heart, and the heart, in its turn, conspicuously transmits it by a pipe or artery, or vessel analogous to an artery ”

“ But what has it to do with the nature of the gods? "When the belly which is placed under the stomach becomes the receptacle of meat and drink, the lungs and the heart draw in the air for the stomach. The stomach, which is wonderfully arranged, consists chiefly of nerves. ”

“ The Nerves which supply the organs of the head are either merely continuations or diverticula of the brain-substance, or proper nerves taking their origin from the brain, or receiving their constituent parts from the foremost part of the spinal chord. ”

“ The little visceral cavity contains the complex groups of muscles for opening and closing the valves, a simple stomach, a large granular liver, a short intestine, two hearts, and the centre of the nervous system. ”

“ We should stand correctly in order that the organs of the body—heart, lungs, stomach, liver, and kidneys—may have room and be in position to do their work well. We should stand erect, chin in, chest high, abdomen flat, and with the weight of the body resting on the balls of the feet. ”

“ The internal region is like a spiral shell, resembling [Pg 63] an auricle at the extremity of the bone, into which as into a vessel the sound passes. Nor is there any passage from it to the brain, but to the palate; and a vein stretches from the brain to it. But the eyes belong to the brain, and each is placed upon a small vein. ”

“ Why do you not rather call it flesh to signify the body, and speak indifferently at one time of the flesh, at another of the body, that the body may be shown to consist of flesh, and the flesh to be the body. But believe me, your silence is not the silence of simplicity. For flesh is defined one way, the body another; all flesh is body, but not every body is flesh. Flesh is properly what is comprised in blood, veins, bones, and sinews. Although the body is also called flesh, yet sometimes it is designated ethereal or aërial, because it is not subject to touch and sight ”

“ When the digestive organs, filling the abdominal cavity, are large, and the lungs and brain small, the individual is lymphatic; he is fond of feeding, and averse to mental and muscular exertion. When the heart and lungs are large, and the brain and abdomen small, the individual is sanguine ”

“ In the instances in which the heart arises as a double cavity it is formed before the complete closure of the throat, and in those in which it arises as a single cavity it is formed subsequently to the complete formation of the throat. ”

“ The similarity of the texture of the brain to that of the pancreas, and some other glands of the body, has induced the inquirers into this subject to believe, that a fluid, perhaps much more subtile than the electric aura, is separated from the blood by that organ for the purposes of motion and sensation. ”

“ But I think that we are more averse to assent on false grounds than to anything else which is contrary to nature. Now of the limbs, that is to say, of the parts of the body, some appear to have been given to us by nature because of the use which, they are of to us, as, for instance, the hands, legs, and feet, and also those internal organs of the body, of which I may leave it to the physicians to explain the exceeding usefulness ”

“ The heart is a muscular body, situated in the breast or chest, somewhat between the lobes of the lungs, and formed by nature to be the principal organ for the circulation of the blood and other fluids. ”

“ Anatomy teaches us, that the skin is a continuation of the membrane which lines the stomach; and your own observation will inform you, that the delicate linings of the mouth, throat, nose, and eyes, are nothing more. Now some people acquire preposterous noses, others blotches on the face and different parts of the body, others inflammation of the eyes—all arising from irritation of the stomach. People laugh at me for talking so much about the stomach. ”

“ Meantime I shall only say, and, without pretending to demonstrate it, propound—with the good leave of our learned men, and with all respect for antiquity—that the heart, with the veins and arteries and the blood they contain, is to be regarded as the beginning and author, and fountain and original of all things in the body, the primary cause of life ”

“ The heart is not mentioned because it is the principal organ, neither are the diaphragm and the lung, because they serve the heart especially, but the rest of the body only incidentally, and were not originally so intended. The brain's task is to collect the different senses connected with it. The organs which are situated below the diaphragm have another secret, because they represent primary nature. ”

“ The most learned authors say that there are veins which communicate from the eye to the brain, but I am inclined to think that the communication is with the stomach; for it is quite certain that a person never loses the eye without feeling sickness at the stomach. ”

“ Neither is it necessary to point out the different parts of the body from whence blood may be taken, as the arm, foot, forehead, temples, neck, &c. These will readily occur to every intelligent person, and the foregoing observations will be sufficient for determining which of them is most proper upon any particular occasion. ”