A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) by Calvin Cutter (lightweight ebook reader txt) 📖
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200. What suggestion when it is necessary to call into action a part of the muscular system? Give the experiment that illustrates this principle. 201. Why should a child he taught to stand erect? 202. How can round shoulders acquired by habit be remedied?
Fig. 50.
Fig. 50. A proper position in sitting.
203. The child should be taught to sit erect when employed in study or work. This attitude favors a healthy action of the various organs of the system, and conduces to beauty and symmetry of form. Scholars are more or less inclined to lean forward and place the elbow on the table or desk, for support 100 and this is often done when their seats are provided with backs. Where there is a predisposition to curvature of the spine, no position is more unfavorable or more productive of deformities than this; for it is usually continued in one direction, and the apparent deformity it induces is a projection of the shoulders. If the girl is so feeble that she cannot sit erect, as represented by fig. 50, let her stand or recline on a couch; either is preferable to the position represented by fig. 51. In furnishing school-rooms, care should be taken that the desks are not so low as to compel the pupils to lean forward in examining their books.
203. Why should the erect attitude be assumed in sitting?
Fig. 51.
Fig. 51. An improper position in sitting.
204. The muscles, when exhausted, cannot endure continued effort. When the energies of the muscular system have been expended by severe and long-continued exercise, or the brain and nervous system prostrated by protracted mental effort, the muscles are unfitted to maintain the body erect in standing or sitting for a long time, as the nervous system, in its exhausted state, cannot supply a sufficient amount of its peculiar influence to maintain the supporting muscles of the body and head in a state of contraction. Hence, a child or adult, when much fatigued, should not be compelled to stand or sit erect in one posture, but should be permitted to vary the position frequently, as this rests and recruits both the muscular and the nervous system.
205. A slight relaxation of the muscles tends to prevent their exhaustion. In walking, dancing, and most of the mechanical employments, there will be less fatigue, and the movements will be more graceful, when the muscles are slightly relaxed. When riding in cars or coaches, the system does not suffer so severely from the jar if there is a slight relaxation of the muscles, as when they are in a state of rigid contraction.
Experiments. Attempt to bow with the muscles of the limbs and trunk rigid, and there will be a stiff bending of the body only at the hip-joint. On the other hand, attempt to bow with the muscles moderately relaxed; the ankle, the knee, and the hip-joint will slightly bend, accompanied with an easy and graceful curve of the body.
206. The muscles when relaxed, together with the yielding character of the cartilage, and the porous structure of the ends of the bones that form a joint, diffuse or deaden the force of 102 jars, or shocks, in stepping suddenly down stairs, or in falling from moderate heights. Hence, in jumping or falling from a carriage, or any height, the shock to the organs of the system may be obviated in the three following ways: 1st. Let the muscles be relaxed, not rigid. 2d. Let the limbs be bent at the ankle, knee, and hips; the head should be thrown slightly forward, with the trunk a little stooping. 3d. Fall upon the toes, not the heel.
204. When are the muscles unfitted to maintain the system erect either in standing or sitting? What is necessary when this condition of the system exists? 205. Why should the muscular system be slightly relaxed in walking, &c.? Give illustrative experiments. 206. What is the reason that we do not feel the jar in falling from a moderate height?
Experiments. Stand with the trunk and lower limbs firm, and the muscles rigid; then jump a few inches perpendicularly to the floor, and fall upon the heels. Again, slightly bend the limbs, jump a few inches, and fall upon the toes, and the difference in the force of the shock, to the brain and other organs, will be readily noticed.
207. The muscles require to be educated, or trained. The power of giving different intonations in reading, speaking, singing, the varied and rapid executions in penmanship, and all mechanical or agricultural employments, depend, in a measure, upon the education of the muscles. In the first effort of muscular education, the contractions of the muscular fibres are irregular and feeble, as may be seen when the child begins to walk, or in the first efforts of penmanship.
208. Repetition of muscular action is necessary. To render the action of the muscles complete and effective, they must be called into action repeatedly and at proper intervals. This education must be continued until not only each muscle, but every fibre of the muscle, is fully under the control of the will. In this way persons become skilful in every employment. In training the muscles for effective action, it is very important that correct movements be adopted at the commencement. 103 If this is neglected, the motions will be constrained and improper, while power and skill will be lost.
How is this shown by experiment? 207. Upon what do the different intonations of sound or mechanical employments depend? Why are the first efforts in educating the muscles indifferent or irregular? 208. Why is repetition of muscular action necessary? Why is it important that correct movements be adopted in the first efforts of muscular education?
Illustration. If a boy, while learning to mow, is allowed to swing his scythe in a stooping position, twisting his body at every sweep of the scythe, he will never become an easy, efficient mower. Proper instruction is as necessary in many of the agricultural branches as in the varied mechanical employments.
Fig. 52.
Fig. 53.
Fig. 52. An improper, but not an unusual position, when writing.
Fig. 53. A proper position, when writing.
209. Good penmanship requires properly trained muscles. To a deficient analysis of the movements of the arm, hand, and fingers, on the part of teachers and pupils in penmanship, together with an improper position in sitting, is to be 104 ascribed the great want of success in acquiring this art. The pen should be held loosely, and when the proper position is attained, the scholar should make an effort to imitate some definite copy as nearly as possible. The movements of the fingers, hand, and arm, necessary to accomplish this, should be made with ease and rapidity, striving, at each effort, to imitate the copy more nearly.
How is this illustrated? 209. Why have so many pupils failed in acquiring good penmanship?
210. When the arm, hand, and fingers are rigid, the large muscles, that bend and extend these parts, are called into too intense action. This requires of the small muscles, that produce the lateral movements, which are essential to rapidity in writing, an effort which they cannot make, or can with difficulty accomplish.
Experiment. Vigorously extend the fingers by a violent and rigid contraction of the muscles upon the lower part of the arm, and the lateral movement which is seen in their separation cannot be made. But gently extend the fingers, and their oblique movements are made with freedom.
211. An individual who is acquainted with the laws of health, whose muscles are well trained, will perform a certain amount of labor with less fatigue and waste to the system, than one who is ignorant of the principles of hygiene, and whose muscles are imperfectly trained. Hence the laboring poor have a deep interest in acquiring a knowledge of practical physiology, as well as skill in their trade or vocation. It is emphatically true to those who earn their bread by the “sweat of their brow,” that “knowledge is power.”
210. What is said of the lateral and oblique movements of the arm, hand, and fingers in writing? How is this shown by experiment? 211. Why is the study of physiology and hygiene of utility to the laborer?
212. The teeth, in composition, nutrition, and growth, are different from other bones of the body. They vary in number at different periods of life, and, unlike other bones, they are exposed to the immediate action of atmospheric air and foreign substances. The bones of the system, generally, when fractured, unite; but there is never a permanent union of a tooth when broken.
213. The TEETH are attached to the upper and lower jaw-bone, by means of bony sockets, called al´ve-o-lar processes. These give great solidity to the attachment of the teeth, and frequently render their extraction difficult. The gums, by their fibrous, fleshy structure, serve to fix the teeth more firmly in the jaw.
Observation. When a permanent tooth is extracted, these bony processes are gradually absorbed, so that in advanced age there remains only the jaw-bone covered by the lining membrane of the gum. This accounts for the narrow jaw and falling in of the lips in old age. Frequently, a piece of the alveolar process comes out with the tooth when extracted, and the dentist has then the credit of “breaking the jaw.” 106 No great injury results from the removal of the process in this manner.
212. What is said of the teeth? In what respect do they differ from other bones of the body? 213–218. Give the anatomy of the teeth. 213. What confines the teeth in the jaw-bone? What becomes of the socket when a tooth is removed? What effect has this absorption upon the jaw and lips?
214. The teeth are formed in the interior of the jaws, and within dent´al cap´sules, (membranous pouches,) which are enclosed within the substance of the bone, and present in their interior a fleshy bud, or granule, from the surface of which exudes the ivory, or the bony part of the tooth. In proportion as the tooth is formed, it rises in the socket, which is developed simultaneously with the tooth, and passes through the gum, and shows itself without.
Fig. 54.
Fig. 54. 1, The body of the lower jaw. 2, Ramus, or branch of the jaw, to which the muscles that move it are attached. 3, 3, The processes which unite the lower jaw with the head. i, The middle and lateral incisor tooth of one side. b, The bicuspid teeth. c, The cuspids, or eye teeth. m, The three molar teeth. A, shows the relation of the permanent to the temporary teeth.
215. The first set, which appears in infancy, is called tem´po-ra-ry, or milk teeth. They are twenty in number; ten in each jaw. Between six and fourteen years of age, the temporary teeth
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