ANATOMICAL. 211 



very early formation, being probably only three and a half 

 months old. " Ah," you may well say, " how wonderful ! " 



Here is another reminder of the words already quoted, 

 " which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there 

 was none of them." There is hardly any part of the 

 bodily house we live in more characteristic of design 

 than the ball-and-socket joint of the knee ; if we only 

 knew how much of our happiness depends upon the self- 

 lubrication of this masterpiece of workmanship, we should 

 thank God at every step we take in the path of life. 



Carefully enwrapped in a bundle of striated muscle, 

 is the first formation of human bone, and this is the earliest 

 stage of a ball-and-socket joint, and here is the place 

 prepared or shall we say, " curiously fashioned " f for 

 that precious little knee-pan called the patella* a round 

 flat bone, not joined to the other, but lying very closely 

 upon it, and kept in its place by the tendons just 

 coming into view. There is scarcely any one of the 223 

 bones of the body but what might be spared as well, if 

 not better, than this, which, though not larger than a 

 crown piece, protects the knee-joint from any injury 

 which might occur by the rubbing of one part against 

 another, and supplies exactly the want which the " keepers 

 of the house " require in the many duties they have 

 daily to perform. 



Here, again, is a tiny drop of human blood, containing a 

 number of corpuscles (" little bodies "), so laid out that we 

 can not only measure their diameter but count their 

 number, though the latter would be no easy task, since 

 we are told that three millions would all lie in the size of 

 a pin's head (Tyndall) ; and the measurement, too, would 

 bother some of us, being only -g^ part of an inch. 

 You will see they are all nucleated that is, having a 

 * Latin, " a small plate." 



