ANDREAS VESALIUS, ON THE [STRUCTURE OF THE HUMAN BODY]

Differences between cartilages. t Figure 1, Chapter 19, k u Figure 1, Chapter 19, F, F x Figures 2, 3, Chapter 18, c

...[Nature] proves this resilience, even when the cartilage is struck on its surface by the edge or point of a knife and then springs back from it. Among the cartilages that are located in exposed parts, you will observe the cartilages of the nose, t the one that is sharpened like the point of a sword at the end of the breastbone the xiphoid process; from the Greek xiphos for sword, the u cartilages of the false ribs, and x the one that grows at the end of the tailbone coccyx; and also the cartilage of the ear, which is thin and soft and covered with skin, beautifully supporting the body of the ear like a bone. Furthermore, these varying uses of cartilages among themselves also explain their differences, so that it is not appropriate now to describe these or the shapes of cartilages at greater length, especially since each individual cartilage, just like the bones, must be described by us specifically in its own place. Although perhaps someone might wish to add here that in younger people, cartilages are soft; but in older people, they are subsequently hardened so much that they resemble the nature of brittle and crumbly bone. This happens most especially to the cartilages of the larynx the voice box and those which lead out from the upper ribs. For in the course of time, and most particularly in brute animals non-human animals, such as the oxen Vesalius often dissected, these become bony, though only on the outside are they girt by cartilage as if by some membrane, which is easily separated and pulled away from that bony substance of the cartilage through boiling original: elixationem; a common technique in early anatomy to strip soft tissue from bone.

THE NAMES BY WHICH THE PARTS OR LOCATIONS OF BONES

AND CARTILAGES ARE CALLED. Chapter III.

FIGURE FOR THE THIRD CHAPTER.

A detailed woodcut anatomical illustration displaying several human bones. On the far left, two views of a femur (thigh bone) are shown, labeled A (anterior) and B (posterior). To the right of the femurs is a mandible (lower jawbone), labeled C. In the upper right is a lateral view of an os coxae (hip bone), labeled D. Below the mandible are two detailed views of the bones of the foot (tarsals and metatarsals). At the bottom right are two additional long bones, labeled I and K, likely a radius or ulna and a tibia or fibula fragment. Numerous small letters (L, M, N, P, a, b, f) and numbers (1, 2, 3, 111, V) serve as anatomical markers across all depicted bones.