OP THE MUSCULAR SYSTEM. 409 



CHAPTER IX. 



OP THE MUSCULAR SYSTEM. 



649. The muscular system,* systema musculare, com* 

 prebends all the organs formed of long, parallel, soft, irritable 

 and contractile fibres, which are of a reddish colour in warm 

 blooded animals, and are called muscular ; these organs 

 produce all the great motions which take place in living 

 bodies. 



The name of muscle, mus, pvj, from ^tr, to contract, indi- 

 cates this property; the muscles are in fact the organs of mo- 

 tion. 



650. It may appear astonishing, but it is nevertheless 

 true, that the first anatomists, Hippocrates and Aristotle, were 

 unacquainted with the muscles and ignorant of their uses. 

 The anatomists of the Alexandrian school were acquainted 

 with these organs, and have mentioned some of them. Galen 

 had a pretty accurate knowledge of them; he represents the 

 muscle as formed by the nerve and by the ligament divided 

 into fibrils, forming a tissue which he calls stcebe, the inter- 

 stices of which are filled with flesh; he supposes the muscles 

 to be endowed with a tonic faculty, or contractile force, and 

 in a state of elastic tension, inherent in their tissue and inde- 

 pendent of life; movement would depend, in that case, on the 

 voluntary relaxation of the antagonist muscles. 



* W. G. Muys, Investigatio fabricae, quse in partibus musculos componenti- 

 bus extat. Diss. i. ; de carnis musculosse fibrarurfi carntarum strudura, Sec. 

 Lug-d. Bat. 1741, 4to, clij. et 432 p. Prochaska, de carne musculari tracta- 

 tus anat. physioL Vienna, 1771; et in op. min, pars. i. ; Viennx, 1820. F. 

 Ribes, flictionn. des Sc. Med. articles muscle,, musculaire, et myologie. 



