1. THE ANIMAL KINGDOM, CONSIDERED ANATOMICALLY, PHYSICALLY, AND PHILOSOPHICALLY.

PART I. THE VISCERA OF THE ABDOMEN, OR THE ORGANS OF THE INFERIOR REGION.

PROLOGUE.

NOTHING whatever is more to be desired, or more delightful than the light of truth; for it is the source of wisdom. When the mind is harassed with obscurity, distracted by doubts, rendered torpid or saddened by ignorance or falsities, and truth emerges as from a dark abyss, it shines forth instantaneously, like the sun dispersing mists and vapors, or like the dawn repelling the shades of darkness. For truths in the intellect or rational mind are analogous to lights and rays in ocular vision; falsities that have the appearance of truth are analogous to unreal or phosphoric lights; doubts, to clouds and shadows; and ignorance itself is thick darkness and the image of night: thus one thing is represented in another.

335 PART II. THE VISCERA OF THE THORAX, OR THE ORGANS OF THE SUPERIOR REGION ¹

CHAPTER I. THE NOSE AND THE UVULA.

HEISTER. "The nose is the organ of smell. This part varies greatly in size and figure in different subjects; it may be either middling, very large or very small; either handsome or the reverse, or aquiline, flat, or depressed. Anatomists divide its parts into external and internal: to the former class belong the dorsum, the root, the bridge, the point, and the alae or pinnaee; the septum dividing the nose into two cavities, termed nares or nostrils; the hairs, called by some vibrissae, which prevent the involuntary discharge of mucus, and the entrance of insects into the fauces; the common teguments, epidermis, skin, and fat. The upper part of the nose is rigid, and composed of bones; the lower part is flexible, and made up of a number of cartilages, muscles, and membranes. The internal parts are the bones, several of which concur to produce the structure of the nose; as the nasal, maxillary, ethmoid or cribriform, spongy, frontal, lacrymal and palatine bones, the vomer, and the sphenoid bone. The cartilages, which form the lower part of the nose, are connected by membranes, in order that the nose may be flexible in that part. The first of these cartilages constitutes the anterior part of the septum narium; there are also two very considerable cartilages in each of the ale, and between these there are placed sometimes two, sometimes three, and sometimes more, of smaller size. The septum narium is cartilaginous in its anterior and lower part, but osseous in its posterior and upper part; and these parts are connected by strong membranes. There are two passages from the nostrils into the mouth, designed for the passage of air and mucus. There are also sinuses in the maxillary, frontal, and sphenoid bones, and cells in the ethmoid bone; all of which increase the nasal cavity, and thus allow of an additional expansion of the pituitary membrane, and augment the sense of smell. There are besides certain inequalities and prominences of the turbinated or spongy bones in the cavity of the nares; serving partly for the same purposes, and partly for preventing the passage of insects and cold air into the fauces.

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