This text describes the composition and function of muscles in the human body, explaining how muscles, bones, and organs collectively structure the body. It provides a detailed breakdown of a muscle's various components, including flesh, tendons, veins, and nerves. Additionally, the text highlights the movement roles these components play, emphasizing the necessity of nerves in muscle function.
Muscles and Their Function.
The muscles are essentially the flesh, and along with the bones, vessels, and internal organs, they compose the whole body. They are made from skin-like and ligamentous fibers, strands or threads, some long, others thicker, and some mostly round, within which the flesh is encased. The flowing blood is shaped within like cheese. Overall, a muscle consists of fleshy parts and, secondly, a tendonous part. Thirdly, veins are involved. Fourthly, arteries. Fifthly, nerves. Sixthly, membranes. Lastly, moisture-retaining fat. Muscles were traditionally divided into three parts: the beginning, middle, and end, or rather the head, belly, and tail. The head is tendonous like the tail but differs in shape and length. The belly or middle is fleshy and elevated, while the tail or end is predominantly tendonous or like a string and nerve-like cord, being similar to a composition of fibers or threads without any flesh: some long or broad, others narrow, ending some with one, others with many tendons, such is noted in the construction and function of each muscle.
The fleshy and tendonous parts of the muscles primarily serve the movement of limbs that must be moved. They require help from nerves, just like other instruments of the senses, noted as the animal forces or spirits from the brain that must conduct the entire body. It should also be noted that muscles are not all identical but must be distinguished in various ways:
Distinction in Location and Form, &c.