918 OF MUSCULAR MOVEMENTS. 



parts has occasioned an increased determination of blood towards them, and in 

 consequence a permanent augmentation in their bulk. This has been the case, 

 for example, with persons who have gained their livelihood by exhibiting feats 

 of strength. Much will, of course, depend on the mechanically advantageous 

 application of muscular power; and in this manner, effects maybe produced, even 

 by persons of ordinary strength, which would not have been thought credible. 

 In lifting a heavy weight in each hand, for example, a person who keeps his 

 back perfectly rigid, so as to throw the pressure vertically upon the pelvis, and 

 only uses the powerful extensors of the thigh and calf, by straightening the 

 ^nees (previously somewhat flexed), and bringing the leg to a right angle with 

 the foot, will have a great advantage over one who uses his lumbar muscles for 

 the purpose. A still greater advantage will be gained, by throwing the weight 

 more directly upon the loins, by means of a sort of girdle, shaped so as to rest 

 upon the top of the sacrum and the ridges of the ilia ; and by pressing with 

 the hands upon a frame, so arranged as to bring the muscles of the arms to the 

 assistance of those of the legs : in this manner a single man, of ordinary 

 strength, may raise a weight of 2000 Ibs. ; whilst few, who are unaccustomed to 

 such exertions, can lift more than 300 Ibs. in the ordinary mode. A man of 

 great natural strength, however, has been known to lift 800 Ibs. with his hands ; 

 and the same individual performed several other curious feats of strength, which 

 seem deserving of being here noticed : " 1. By the strength of his fingers, he 

 rolled up a very large and strong pewter dish. 2. He broke several short and 

 strong pieces of tobacco-pipe, with the force of his middle finger, having laid 

 them on the first and third finger. 3. Having thrust in under his garter the bowl 

 of a strong tobacco-pipe, his legs being bent, he broke it to pieces by the tendons 

 of his hams, without altering the bending of the knee. 4. He broke such 

 another bowl between his first and second fingers, by pressing them together 

 sideways. 5. He lifted a table six feet long, which had half a hundred-weight 

 hanging at the end of it, with his teeth, and held it in that position for a con- 

 siderable time. It is true, the feet of the table rested against his knees ; but, 

 as the length of the table was much greater than its height, that performance 

 required a great strength to be exerted by the muscles of his loins, neck, and 

 jaws. 6. He took an iron kitchen poker, about a yard long, and three inches 

 in circumference, and, holding it in his right hand, he struck it on his bare left 

 arm between the elbow and the wrist, till he bent the poker nearly to a right 

 angle. 7. He took such another poker, and, holding the ends of it in his 

 hands, and the middle of it against the back of his neck, he brought both ends 

 of it together before him j and, what was yet more difficult, he pulled it straight 

 again." 1 Haller mentions an instance of a man who could raise a weight of 

 300 Ibs. by the action of the elevator muscles of his jaw : and that of a slen- 

 der girl, affected with tetanic spasm, in whom the extensor muscles of the back, 

 in the state of tonic contraction or opisthotonos, resisted a weight of 800 Ibs., 

 laid on the abdomen with the absurd intention of straightening the body. It 

 is to be recollected that the mechanical application of the power developed by 



1 " Desaguliers' Philosophy," vol. ii. The energy of muscular contraction appears to 

 be greater in Insects, in proportion to their size, than it is in any other animals. Thus a 

 Flea has been known to leap sixty times its own length, and to move as many times its 

 own weight. The short-limbed Beetles, however, which inhabit the ground, manifest the 

 greatest degree of muscular power. The Lucanus cervus (Stag Beetle) has been known to 

 gnaw a hole of an inch in diameter, in the side of an iron canister in which it had been 

 confined. The Geotropes stercorarius (Dung or shard-born Beetle) can support uninjured, 

 and even elevate, a weight equal to at least 500 times that of its body. And a small 

 Carabus has been seen to draw a weight of 85 grains (about 24 times that of its body) 

 up a plane of 25 ; and a weight of 125 grains (36 times that of its body) up a plane of 5 ; 

 and in both these instances the friction was considerable, the weights being simply laid 

 upon a piece of paper, to which the insect was attached by a string. 



