Wonderful It All Is.--Wonderful! Within us is an Almighty Architect, who superintends a thousand skilled laborers, that make a way which puzzles human comprehension; theory fiber of muscle; they are a filament of nerve; here constructing a bone; they are uniting attendant -- fashioning each with the most scrupulous care and unerring nicety. Without the buzz of a saw, or the sound of a hammer; without the slightest compression, or the least particle of boys; with a regularity, certainty and exactness, the glorious temple of man, in the image of his Creator, goes up and up, day by day, skilfully put together by these noiseless, tireless and expert workman.
First off it like to point out that this section utilizes the words "superintends" and it spells the words 'skilfully' with one 'l' in skill. These two spelling items or word usages seem to be a good illustration of the change of spelling and vocabulary over a hundred years. I've read thousands of books never seen the word superintends in print before. I've never seen the word skillfully printed with one L. either.
Second, this section is definitely full of nonsecular references. It's the closing paragraph of this particular section that was several pages long covering the digestive apparatus and its wonders. This section seems to have included more information about the wonders than the actual digestive apparatus, which would have been suitable for a Bible but not necessarily for a medical textbook.
Finally this section has a number of crazy references again which seems to capitalize on the last two or three sections that were full of gibberish that were put there for no apparent purpose whatsoever other than to fill pages with print.
Additional Articles from the Book of Medicine:
- The Shin Bone
The Shin Bone. -The Tibia or shinbone is also a very large, strong, triangular-shaped bone, enlarged at both ends; the lower end, however where it articulates and forms a hinge joint with the foot, is larger and more prominent than the upper end. And as if this bone was not sufficiently strong enough in itself to bear the weight of the body, our Creator, that boundless wisdom and forethought everywhere in the human frame you see revealed, strengthens the legs by an additional bone, which is seen running on the outer side of the shinbone, to which it is firmly found at both ends.
That is the Shin Bone and I must say that I will be happy when we get out of the glossary of body parts. We are approaching diseases and their transmission next which should be a more interesting topic and less likely to make a person want to update cover letters from 10 years ago in their spare time.
- Bones of the Face – Spinal Collumn
Bones of the Face — the bones of the face shown in this plate are the nasal bone, forming the arch of the nose, and malar, which gives prominence to the cheek, the upper jaw, containing the upper teeth, in the lower jaw, containing the under teeth.
The Spinal Column — that portion of the spinal column noticed in the illustration consists of the cervical vertebrae. Each vertebra is composed of a body, with seven spinous processes projecting from it. The body is perforated by a ring, through which is seen running the spinal cord, giving off nerves between each separate bone. A ring of cartilage is seen inserted between each separate vertebra, the object of which is to prevent any jar reaching the brain when we run, jump, walk or stumble.
- Who Were the People that wrote the Book of Medicine?
I haven’t had a lot of time to look into the authors of the book of medicine. One of the side projects I’d like to tackle with this book is identifying, who these people were that authored and edited the book, identify where they lived and worked and where they came from. Fortunately utilizing the powers of sites such as ancestry.com I can actually trace and get access to public records such as census records that might indicate who they were where they lived and what their lives were like. If they were recent immigrants to the United States or if they lived in the United Kingdom or whether they were from Germany or Ireland, etc.
I’d like to also determine where they went to school to learn medicine, I will admit that I have no idea how to go about the second part but I’m hoping that the first inquiry provides more background information that might lead to information on the second part.
Who knows it could even be possible that I will be able to find some people that knew them, maybe some relatives that will be able provides a personal perspective on the authors of this book. Who knows I might even come across these people running a Pigeon Forge vacation rentals company, or teaching at a university today or maybe they’re even somebody I know I just haven’t made the connection.