442 GENERAL ANATOMY. 



709. They are very numerous; there are from three to four 

 hundred of them, but this number has been variously stated. 

 Some regarding as several muscles what others have repre- 

 sented as bundles of an individual muscle. 



710. Each muscle has its proper name, but this nomen- 

 clature has greatly varied. There is scarcely a single muscle 

 which has not received more than one, name, some have re- 

 ceived as many as a dozen. 



The denomination of the muscles has been derived from 

 several considerations: numerical order has been applied to 

 them, thus when several muscles belong to the same part, the 

 same region, or same action, &c.; they have been distinguished 

 by the names of numbers, as the radial, the adductor, the inter- 

 osseous muscles, have been distinguished by first, second, &c. 

 Before James Sylvius, almost all the muscles were thus dis- 

 tinguished by the name of numbers. Some have adopted as sur- 

 names, their anterior, posterior, superior, inferior, superficial, 

 deep-seated, &c., situation, or they have been distinguished by 

 the name of the part they move, or the region they occupy, as 

 the palpebral, occular, labial, pectoral, dorsal, abdominal, crural 

 muscles, &c. Others are distinguished, according to their ex- 

 tent, or their volume, by the epithets great,small, mean, slender, 

 vast, wide, long, short, &c. Others have been named rhom- 

 boidal, square, triangular, scalenus, &c., in conformity with 

 the figure it was imagined they possessed; or else they have 

 been called splenius, by being compared with the spleen, or a 

 compress, solearis because of their resemblance to the fish 

 called a sole, or to the sole of a shoe. Certain muscles have 

 been named with reference to their direction, right, oblique, 

 transversal, spiral; after their texture and their composition, 

 they have been named biceps, triceps, complexus semi-ten- 

 dinosus, perforans, perforatus, &c. Other muscles have been 

 denominated according to their insertions, either from one of 

 them only, as the pterygoidi, peronei, zygomatici, &c. ; or from 

 two, as the stylo-hyoideus, sterno-hyoideus; or from a greater 

 number, as the sterno-cleido-mastoideus. Others again have 

 been named according to their use, flexors, extensors, eleva- 

 tors, abductors, depressors, pronatores, supinatores, &c.; finally, 



