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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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cerjtsuii internal powers of Hie system , many of which are not only inore certain and obvious in their effects than they are above all human comprehension as to the mode of their operation * Thus a wound heals by a natural
process : a broken bpne is united and made whole by a deposit of new bony ' matter ; a dead part is separated and thrown off : a redundancy is often removed by some spontaneous bleeding : a bleeding naturally stops of itself : a great loss of blood from any
cause is , in some measure , compensated by a contracting power in the vascular system which accommodates the capacity of the vessels to the quantity contained . The stomach , as we all know , gives information when tlje supplies have been exhausted ; it
represents with great exactness the quantity and quality of what is wanted in the present state of the machine , and in proportion as she meets with neglect rises in her demands with a louder tone . Farther , for the protection of the animal amidst the
fluctuations in the heat of external bodies , a power of generating it has been provided ; and to prevent its undue accumulation , in a heated atmosphere , on the one hand , or an excessive abstraction in a cold one , the quantity
carried off is regulated with a surprising nicety to its wants ; so that an equal temperature is preserved in all the range of climates , from the extreme point of habitable existence in the polar regions to the intense heat of the torrid zone .
Another excellence or superiority in the natural machine , besides those internal powers of self-preservation , iu each individual , is the capability which those individuals possess of creating , by union , beings like themselves , which are again endued with
similar powers for producing others , and thus of multiplying or renewing the species without end . These surely are powers which set at nought all human invention or imitation . They are truly the characteristics of the divine architect .
7 With these introductory remarks on the mechanism of the human frame we shall proceed to consider the bones or prop-work of the whole . The bones , constituting the basis and support of the body , are its most . hard and solid parts : they are intended to give shape as well as firmness
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to the body : to be levers for the muscles to act upon , ^ nd some of them are intended to defend those parts from external injury that are of the greatest importance to animal existence , as the brain , heart , &c . On
a superficial view the bones appear to be inorganic , concrete substances , and not liable , like the soft parts or the body , to disease and death . This is not , however , the case ; they are found by dissection to contain
numerous vessels , which are supplied like the other parts of the body wit ]} blood that circulates through them for their support and nourishment they have also their periods of growth and decay , and are liable equally with them to disease , and to derangement from external injuries . That the bones
in common with the rest of our frame , suffer a constant renovation of parts is proved by the following experiment , If madder be given to an animal , -and then withheld for some time , and
afterward given again , in twenty-four hours after it has been first given , all its bones will become tinged ; and in two or three days the colour become * very deep ; in a few days after the madder has been discontinued , the
red-colour disappears ; but on its being given again to the animal its bones become a second time tinged The aborption of bones is proved by the disappearance of a carious or dead bone even before the skin is opened ;
and bv the destruction of a bone mJ merely from the pressure of a tumour against it , in which oases the bone must have been taken up by the absorbing vessels , and conveyed away : this absorption of the bones is p laced beyond all doubt by the fatal disease called the molities ossiunu which in
a short time dissolves find carries on , by an excessive action of the absorbents , the bony system , discharg ing by the kidneys the earthy matter , and gradually rendering the bones soft , till they bend under the weight of the body and may be most easily cut with a knife .
In their first state the parts which afterwards become bones , are ver * soft fibre ? , till by the addition of mater , which is separated from the blood , they gradually grow to the hardne * of a cartilage , and from that state a perfect bone . These great cM ^ are neither effected in a very sh ° time , nor begun in in all the parts
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434 Naftppal Theology . 2 Vo * VjI ^ fyechaiMc qll Arrangem en t of the Body .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1815, page 434, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1762/page/34/
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