CHAPTER II 



MYOLOGY 



The first point to decide in commencing this study is the 

 order in which we shall consider the different muscles which 

 we have to examine. It must not be forgotten that in the 

 present work we compare the organization of animals with 

 that of man, which we already know, and that it is on the 

 construction of this latter that, in these studies, the thought 

 must at each instant be carried back in order to establish 

 this comparison. Now, the general tendency which we 

 notice in our teaching of anatom\^, when one regards the 

 region of the trunk in the human figure (a living model or 

 a figure in the round), is first to consider the anterior aspect. 

 It is the latter that, for this reason, we study at the very 

 beginning ; we next deal with the posterior surface of the 

 trunk, because it is opposite ; lastly, the lateral surfaces, 

 because they unite with the preceding surfaces, the one to 

 the other. 



In studying an animal, it is usually by one of its lateral 

 aspects that one first observes it ; it is, in fact, by these 

 aspects that it presents its greatest dimensions, and that the 

 morphological characters as a whole can be more readily 

 appreciated. Hence, possibly, the order of description 

 adopted in most texts, or in the figures which accompany 

 them. The first representation of the human figure as a 

 whole, in a treatise on anatomy, represents the anterior 

 aspect ; the first view of the horse as a whole, in a treatise 

 on veterinary anatomy, for example, is, on the other hand, 

 a lateral view. 



129 g 



