48 THE HUMAN BODY. 



spheroid, &c.; and lastly, it can reach every portion of the 

 body. 



The hand is essentially the organ of touch and of prehen- 

 sion. These functions devolve principally upon its anterior 

 or palmar face. The nervous papillae with which it is pro- 

 vided abound specially at the ends of the fingers, where they 

 form furrows in elegant curves under the epidermis. The 

 tendons in it are very numerous, and bound together by 

 multiplied connections. Strong aponeuroses and sheaths, 

 through which the tendons slide, make the skin compact, and 

 combine to give unity to the general movements of the dif- 

 ferent parts of the organ, and independence to partial ones. 

 A layer of adipose tissue, very close in texture, protects, with- 

 out lessening its power or its delicacy, that network of 

 muscles, vessels, and nerves, this apparatus which sometimes 

 barely touches an object, and sometimes grasps it with such 

 violent pressure. The hand, in fact, is either a delicate 

 pincer or a powerful vice; it guides the burin of the en- 

 graver, which leaves behind it the finest trace, the hatchet 

 of the carpenter and the axe of the woodman, whose blows 

 are given with as much strength as skill. The fingers of the 

 sailor knot the heavy cordage, and those of the optician 

 stretch a spider's thread, without breaking it, across the field 

 of an astronomical telescope. The same organ can hold a 

 switch, a club, a sword, a hammer, or a pen. It moulds 

 itself to a body to ascertain its form ; it comes to the aid of 

 the eye in completing or rectifying its impressions, and in 

 some cases even supplies its place. Thus the finger of the 

 physician perceives on the surface of an organ the slightest 

 inequality in relief; and the hand of Michael Angelo fol- 

 lowed with enthusiasm the contour of the antique torso, 

 which the eyes of the great artist could no longer contem- 

 plate. 



But nothing gives a more complete idea of the perfection 

 of the mechanism of the hand, than the execution of instru- 

 mental music. Examine an artist while he plays on a violin. 

 His fingers rest upon the strings so as to leave them exactly 

 of the length necessary for the tones they are to give. The 

 half of a millimetre, more or less, greatly changes the true- 



