bl'l PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [ANNO 1800. 



instance of it appears in the rapid movements of the fingers, in performing several 

 actions, and particularly in playing on a musical instrument. In all such rapid 

 motions, the fingers are bent to a certain degree by the long muscles that lie on 

 the fore-arm, to the tendons of which a set of smaller muscles are attached, called 

 lumbricales. These last are unable to produce any effect on the fingers, till elongated 

 in consequence of the action of the long muscles in bending the other joints; the 

 lumbricales then become capable of bending the fingers a little more, and of acting 

 with great rapidity. It is a curious circumstance, that a similar application of 

 muscles should be employed to fit the fingers to produce a quick succession of 

 sounds, and to enable the ear to be impressed by them. 



From the explanation given of the adjustment of the membrana tympani, the 

 difference between a musical ear and one which is too imperfect to distinguish the 

 different notes in music, will appear to arise entirely from the greater or less nicety 

 with which the muscle of the malleus renders the membrane capable of being truly 

 adjusted. If the tension be perfect, all the variations produced by the action of 

 the radiated muscle will be equally correct, and the ear truly musical; but if the 

 first adjustment is imperfect, though the actions of the radiated muscle may still 

 produce infinite variations, none of them will be correct: the effect, in this respect, 

 will be similar to that produced by playing on a musical instrument which is not in 

 tune. The hearing of articulate sounds requires less nicety in the adjustment, than 

 of inarticulate or musical ones: an ear may therefore be able to perceive the one, 

 though it is not fitted to receive distinct perceptions from the other. 



The nicety or correctness of a musical ear being the result of muscular action, 

 renders it in part an acquirement; for, though the original formation of these 

 muscles in some ears renders them more capable of arriving at this perfection in 

 their action, early cultivation is still necessary for that purpose; and it is found that 

 an ear, which on the first trials seemed unfit to receive accurate perceptions of 

 sounds, shall, by early and constant application, be rendered tolerably correct, but 

 never can attain excellence. There are organs of hearing in which the parts are so 

 nicely adjusted to each other, as to render them capable of a degree of correct- 

 ness in hearing sounds which appears preternatural. Children who during their in- 

 fancy are much in the society of musical performers, will be naturally induced to 

 attend more to inarticulate sounds than articulate ones, and by these means acquire 

 a correct ear, which, after listening for 2 or 3 years to articulate sounds only, 

 would have been attained with more difficulty. This mode of adapting the ear to 

 different sounds, appears to be one of the most beautiful applications of muscles in 

 the body; the mechanism is so simple, and the variety of effects so great. 



Several ways in which the correctness of hearing is affected by the wrong actions 

 of the muscles of the tympanum, that appeared to be inexplicable, can be readily 

 accounted for, now that the means by which the membrane adjusts itself are un- 

 derstood. The following are instances of this kind. — Case 1. A gentleman 33 

 years of age, who possessed a very correct ear, so as to be capable of singing in 



