356 GENERAL ANATOMY. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



OF THE OSSEOUS SYSTEM. 



565. The osseous system,* or the skeleton, 2%fMiw, re- 

 sults from the union of the bones, which are the hardest and 

 driest parts of the body. 



566. It is of all the systems that which shows itself last 

 in the animal series; it appears along; with the nervous centre 

 (the spinal marrow and brain) to which it serves as an enve- 

 lope. 



567. The same sense has not always been attached to the 

 words bone and skeleton. In the writings of Hippocrates and 

 Aristotle is found the source of the two principal ideas at- 

 tached to these words, and which are still a subject of contro- 

 versy among zootomists. 



The author of the Treatise on the Nature of the Bones at- 

 tributes to them the uses of determining the form, the straight- 

 ness, and the direction of the body. This idea has prevailed, 

 and it is still generally admitted, that the principal functions 

 of the osseous system are to determine the form of the body, 

 and to facilitate its motions. Agreeably to this definition, 



* The best works on osteology are the following: A. Monro, Anatomy 

 of the Bones and Nerves. Edin. 1726, 8vo. W. Cheselden, Osteographia t 

 &c. Lond. 1733. fol. B. S. Albinus, de Os&ibus carp. hum. Lugd. Bat. 

 1726, 8vo. Id. de Scekto hum. ibid. 1762. 4to. Id. Tab. sceleti et muscul. 

 ibid. 1747. fol. max. Id. Tab. ossium. ibid. 1753. fol. max. Boehmer. 

 Institutiones osteologicce. Halac-Magd. 1751. Tarin. Osteographie. Paris, 

 1753. Bertin. Traitt tfosteologie. Paris, 1754. Ed. Sandifort. Descrip- 

 tio ossium hominis. Lugd. Bat. 1785. Loschge. Die Knochen, &c. Ab- 

 bildungen und kurzen Beschr. Erlang. 1804. fol. Blumenbach. Getchichtc 

 und Btschreibung der Knochen. Getting. 1807. 



