378 ANATOMY. 



cellulce adiposce, I think the animal parts of the hone should he called 

 ( calcose membrane,' cellulce terrestres seu calcarece. 



Young hone may always be said to grow, even the part that seems to 

 be already formed ; for at first it is growing longer, thicker and denser ; 

 so that there is always new matter added until it is at its full growth. 

 But in the full-grown state, it would appear from the circumstance of 

 reddening a whole bone by feeding the animal with madder, that a 

 bone, although completely formed, yet is changing its earth, and pro- 

 bably every other part. This effect, however, is much slower than in 

 the growing bone. This would show that the madder does not act as a 

 dye upon the earth which is already deposited in the bone, but only 

 upon that matter that is every day deposited ; and as there is a great 

 deal more deposited in a young bone than in an old one in a given time, 

 in the same proportion must it dye sooner than an old one. The new 

 matter that is deposited in an old bone is to make up for the waste that 

 is daily going on in it ; but in a very old bone the waste is more than 

 the repair 1 . 



Bones would seem to have but very little sensibility. This is best 

 known in the fractured patella : where generally there is no contusion, 

 no splinters to run into sensible parts, and nothing torn but what is also 

 insensible. People who meet with such an accident, seldom complain 

 of pain when it happens. It is similar in this respect to the rupture of 

 the tendo Achillis 2 . 



The number of bones should he reckoned according to the number of 

 distinct cartilages which ossify ; for, in general, wherever Nature in- 

 tended a bone, she first made a cartilage of the shape of the intended 

 bone. Yet this is not universal ; for I believe in none of the bones of 

 the head, except the occipital and sphenoid bones, is there a cartilage : 

 the others being formed in membrane ; and even in the exceptions 

 above mentioned it is only at the union of the ossifications that we find 

 cartilage : in their circumference we find the bony rays shooting out 

 into membrane. From this mode of numbering bones, we see that the 

 bones called ' occipitale' and ' sphenoides' are but one bone. However, 

 as a general principle, it appears the best ; for we find it almost every 

 where else in the body. Therefore it seems improper to give the parts 

 of one bone in the adult two, three, or four different names, because it 



1 [The preparations resulting from the experiments on the growth of bone are 

 Nos. 188 — 201, Phys. Series. See also the memoir on the same subject "From the 

 Papers of the late Mr. Hunter," communicated by Home to the "Transactions of a 

 Society for the Improvement of Medical and C'hirurgical Knowledge," vol. ii. 

 p. 277, 1798.] 



2 [An injury of which Hunter had personal experience.] 



