Wonders of the Spiral Plate.-if this curious and artistic spiral play, which is seen to wine 2 ½ times around, could be enrolled and made to stand in an upright position, you would make a beautiful microscopic heart, that of a thousand strings, but of 3000 strings, and if it were possible to strike these delicate infinitesimal chords as we can the keyboard of an organ or piano, every conceivable variety of tone that the ear can distinguish would be produced and conveyed to the brain is the product of sound.

Well if you have been following this series on the ear with me, you are probably as happy as I am that the author is no longer talking about arches in the ear.  maybe they ended up finding one of those Freudian drug rehab programs after all!

Additional Articles from the Book of Medicine:

• Mineral Springs
  
  

  Mineral Springs. — mineral springs, notwithstanding they are much used for drinking, are properly medicinal agents. They comprise all those waters which contain sufficient quantities of dissolved matters, such for example, as iron or sulfur, as to produce thereby a positive effect upon the systems of persons for taking of them. The mineral springs of this country are frequently valuable remedial agents and some chronic diseases.

   

  In this section they do kind of tell you something about the category and that this type of water has minerals or other matter that is dissolved in the water. It doesn’t happen to mention how those minerals may have a come to be there, such as those that are mingled with water by the Earth itself as opposed to water that is polluted by a person. In some regards I believe the author has at this point, deemed the actual term of mineral springs, to be a term that would be widely recognized by people and the author thereby hopes that the categorization of this type of water will take place in the readers mind such that the author or editor does not actually have to spell out why something is in a category at all. It’s a little backwards but almost like a person might expect that a living creature wearing baby clothes should be a baby as opposed to a dog dressed up in baby clothes. The assumption is that the object associated with something that is commonly known should lead the reader to accept categorization automatically. Again this is not terribly scientific and creates the imperative for an assumption, which might lead us to assume, that the author has not learned the lesson of making an ass out of you and me.

• Muscular Arrangement and Blood Supply
  
  

  Muscles of the Trunk of the Human Body.

  Muscular Arrangement and Blood Supply.  — In this exquisite and magnificent colored engraving we had a grand view of the wonderful arrangement of the muscles of the trunk of the human body, together with the muscular arrangement of the arms and likewise their blood supply.  The trunk of the body is divided into two compartments — the thorax and the abdomen.

  I believe this opening segment is referring to the first image and charred two.  (see chart 2 first picture  )

  Now I am not a doctor nor I are very good artist, but as I look at this drawing or engraving as it’s referred to it seemed a little basic to me.  Sure I’m used to souped-up graphics and a number of other things that it developed in the last 90 years.  That difference I suppose is one of the remarkable things about the book.  I often point out the difference and grammar and punctuation and perspective to need a little bit and knowledge.
  This is another example of cultural differences spanning 90 years of time.  90 years ago this might have been a very accurate and high-tech picture, well today and 2007 it looks extremely basic almost like something that a grade school student might color with a crayon.

  It may be a little trite but like to point out also a diagram of the belly button, which strikes me as rather ludicrous looking even though it’s not all that bad.  Maybe it’s the two-dimensional rendering of the belly button that strikes me, or maybe it’s the juxtaposition of a section of skin on top of a section of the torso that has no skin.  I’m not really sure but it seems little funny to me.

• 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.