376 MUSCULAR MOTION. 



temperature of the atmosphere ; so that any effort to fix a time for 

 such conversion must be liable to much inconclusiveness. Yet the opin- 

 ion of a medical practitioner on the subject has been the foundation of 

 a juridical decision. At the Lent assizes, holden at Warwick, Eng- 

 land, in the year 1805, the following case came before the court. A 

 gentleman, who was insolvent, left his home with the intention, as 

 was presumed from his previous conduct and conversation, of de- 

 stroying himself. Five weeks and four days after that period, his body 

 was found floating down a river. The face was disfigured by putrefac- 

 tion, and the hair separated from the scalp on the slightest pull ; but 

 the other parts of the body were firm and white, without any putrefac- 

 tive appearance. On examining the body, it was found that several 

 parts were converted into adipocire. A commission of bankruptcy 

 having been taken out against the deceased a few days after he left 

 home, it became an important question to the interest of his family to 

 ascertain whether or not he was living at that period. From the 

 changes sustained by the body, it was presumed, that he had drowned 

 himself on the day he left home; and to corroborate the presumption, 

 the evidence of Dr. Gibbes was requested, who, from his experiments 

 on this subject, it was thought, was better acquainted with it than any 

 other person. Dr. Gibbes stated on the trial, that he had procured a 

 small quantity of this fatty matter, by immersing muscular parts of 

 animals in water for a month, and that it required five or six weeks to 

 form it in any large quantity. Upon this evidence, the jury were of 

 opinion, that the deceased was not alive at the time the commission was 

 taken out, and the bankruptcy was accordingly superseded! 1 



Bones. 



The bones are the hardest parts of the animal frame ; and serve as 

 a base of support and attachment to the soft parts. They constitute 

 the framework of the body, and determine its general shape. The 

 principal functions they fulfil are, to form defensive cavities for the 

 most important organs of the body, the encephalon, spinal-marrow, 

 &c. and to act as so many levers for transmitting the weight of the 

 body to the soil, and for the different locomotive and partial movements. 

 To them are attached the different muscles, concerned in those func- 

 tions. In man and the higher classes of animals, the bones are, as a 

 general rule, within the body; his skeleton is, consequently, said to be 

 internal. In the Crustacea, the testaceous mollusca, and certain in- 

 sects, the skeleton is external; the whole of the soft parts being con- 

 tained within it. The lobster and crab are familiar instances of this 

 arrangement. 



The stature of the human skeleton is various, and may be taken, on 

 the average, perhaps, in -those of European descent, at about five 

 feet seven and a half inches. 2 We find, however, examples of con- 

 siderable variation from this average. A skeleton of an Irish giant, 



1 Male, Epitome of Forensic Medicine, in Cooper's Tracts on Medical Jurisprudence, 

 Philad., 1919. 



a Quetelet, Sur THomme, &c., Paris, 1835; or translation by Dr. Knox, p. 64, Edinb., 1842. 



