6E0SS STRUCTURE OF STRIATED MUSCLE 



271 



edges of the muscle, fuses into a glistening, white, inelas- 

 tic cord called the tendon. These tendons are very use- 

 ful in the body, because they permit the contracting or 

 belly part of the muscle to be placed at some distance 

 from the part to be moved, and the inelastic cords trans- 

 mit these contractions without loss of power to the parts 

 to which they are attached, and, at the same time, this 

 arrangement avoids bulkiness. Thus, the fingers are 

 flexed and extended by muscles whose bodies are located 

 in the forearm, and whose contractions are transmitted 

 to the finger bones by tendons attached to the bones at 

 one end and to the muscles at the other. The extensor 

 tendons on the back of the hand can be readily followed 

 to their origin and insertion. It is evident that such an 

 arrangement gives much greater delicacy and ease of 

 manipulation to the hand than would be the case if 

 each finger were attached directly to a muscle. This 

 tendon method of attachment is especially noticeable 



in the limbs where bulkiness 

 is most undesirable. 

 If we boil a piece of the 

 '■' dissected muscle or a piece 

 of lean beef (the bellied 

 muscle of a beef creature), 

 it readily separates into a 

 series of smaller prism- 

 shaped bundles, and these 

 may be easily picked apart. 

 Examination of one of these 

 prism-shaped bundles shows 

 it to be covered with the same sheathlike perimysium which 

 in fact is merely a partitionlike extension of the outer peri- 



1^0.117 — Bundles of striated muscles 

 cut across ;/,/, several bundles bound 

 togetber to make up tbe main muscle. 



