Foot.
| Ossa Metatarsi | 5 |
Toes.
| Digitorum | 14 |
| — | |
| 30 |
The connection of the bones are in various ways; those connections that are designed for rest, are by close contact of parts, and are called sutures or seams; such are the bones of the skull with themselves and the face. Those connections which are designed for motion are called articulation. Some of the articulations have but an obscure motion, as the ribs with the back-bone, and the back with itself, &c. Others have an angular motion, as the elbows and knees; and others again have an universal motion, as the arm-bone with the shoulder, and the thigh bone with the hip. The sutures, and such connections as have no motion, are merely dovetailed into one another in close connection; but those articulations that are designed for motion are connected by cartilages, either in close contact, or so as to move slippery over one another.
The ligaments are those tough tendinous parts, by which the articulations designed for motion are joined together; at some parts they cover the joints only, and at others, they are immediately fastened to each other, besides the external coverings; those ligaments are very strong and elastic, and have a close connection with the nerves that pass by them.
The surrounding ligaments of all moveable joints, form a capsular-bag, which contains a slippery liquor, called synovia, that lubricates the ends of the bones covered with cartilages, that they may move with ease and agility over one another.
Muscles are the fleshy parts on the human body, appointed for motion. They are a composition of arteries, veins, nerves, and tendons.
Muscles are generally divided into two kinds; those for necessary or involuntary motion, and those for voluntary. Some again are fastened at each end to some of the bones at their extremity, and contract themselves in a straight direction; others again are annular, or in the form of a ring; and by this manner open and shut. The first kind are generally divided into three parts, the head, belly, and tail. The whole muscle begins and ends in a tendon, by which it is fastened to the part it is designed to move; which, when the belly of the muscle contracts itself, must consequently draw both bones nearer together, fastened to the head and tail; and thus performs the motion. Some of these muscles act in consort, and others in opposition to each other.
The tendons are the principal parts of the muscle; and that part thereof, as before observed, which is fastened in the bones, namely, at the head and tail of the muscle, and is the chord, as it were, by which the limb is brought into motion.