The House I Live In; Or The Human Body: For the Use of Families and Schools

Front Cover
George W. Light, 1839 - Anatomy - 264 pages

From inside the book

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 24 - They consist often of the bark of a single tree, bent in the middle, and placed on its two ends in the ground, affording shelter to only one miserable tenant.
Page 63 - ... combined. Nothing is more remarkable than the manner in which the delicate and moving apparatus of the palm and fingers' is guarded. The power with which the hand grasps, as when a sailor lays hold to raise his body to the rigging, would be too great for the texture of mere tendons, nerves, and vessels ; they would be crushed, Were not every part that bears the pressure defended with a cushion of fat, as elastic as that in the foot of the horse and the camel.
Page 64 - ... consequence. Without it, the farmer could not sow his grain, or plant his corn, or weed it, or hoe it while growing, or collect it when ripe ; nor, if it were grown, could the miller grind it, nor the baker make it into bread. Neither could we raise any thing to eat in its stead.
Page 237 - I think, from the complexity of its mechanism, and the delicacy of many of its parts, that it should always be liable to derangement, or that it would soon work itself out. Yet shall this wonderful machine go, night and day, for eighty years together, at the rate of a hundred thousand strokes every twenty-four hours, having, at every stroke, a great resistance to overcome ; and shall continue this action for this length of time, without disorder and without weariness...
Page 61 - The four longest, opposite figure 1, support the palm of the hand, and are joined at one end to the wrist bones, and at the other to the first joint of the fingers. The junction of these bones is effected, as are all the other joints of the body, by means of cartilaginous tips, which allow of free motion, and are strongly secured by ligaments. This series of bones is called the metacarpus.
Page 67 - ... without the aid of their hands, than does the existence among his fellow-creatures of a person afflicted with blindness, show that all could flourish without the use of their eyesight. The individuals already mentioned could not have made for themselves the pens and pencils to write and draw with, or the needles to sew with, nor could the man have placed the pen in his girdle ; and there are a thousand other necessary things which they could not do. The human tongue is spoken of by an inspired...
Page 235 - The blood continually circulates in our bodies : the heart, which is the principal organ of circulation, is placed within the breast, between the two lobes of the lungs ; it is a fleshy substance, and has two cavities, which are separated from each other by a valve.
Page 61 - They are situated between the ulna (5) and the radius (6) at the one end, and the metacarpal bones and the first bone of the thumb, on the other. They are wedged together like the stones of a pavement, only not quite so firmly; each bone being tipped with cartilage, and sustained by strong ligaments, which unite it to its fellows. All the bones which compose the wrist have had names given to them by anatomists, from their supposed resemblance to other objects; but as the enumeration of these names...
Page 63 - ... are dressed up with muscles, tendons, membranes, nerves, arteries, and veins, and furnished with skin and nails, in a manner which I cannot now fully describe, the whole presents a most beautiful appearance. Beautiful and useful as it is however, and placed before our eyes from the time we see the light till we sleep in death, there are few things in the whole visible world, of which not only young persons, but adults also, are so ignorant ! So important is the human hand, as a member of the...
Page 94 - Why, this continued rubbing of the bones of the knee together, if they were allowed to get dry, would wear them so much in a single day, that we should hear a grating noise at every step, long before night. And in a very few days the bones would be completely worn out, and unfit for use. I question, if they would last even a whole day. Iron, or steel, or even the hardest thing you can think of in the world, would wear out in a very short time.

Bibliographic information