Nicolaus steno's new myology (1667): Rather than muscle, the motor fibre should be called animal's organ of movement

Nuncius

Volumn 23, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 37-64

  Kardel, Troels ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN   (Denmark)

Author keywords

Early modern biology; Heart muscle; Muscle models; Niels Stensen

Indexed keywords

EID: 56349116307     PISSN: 03947394     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/182539108x00021     Document Type: Article

References (132)

1. NICOLAUS STENO [Niels Stensen], Elementorum myologie specimen (Florentiæ: Sub Signo Stelle, 1667), p. 5.
2. Further references are made to the facsimile edition with English translation by Sister M. Emmanoel Collins, Paul Maquet and myself in s STENO, "Steno on Muscles", Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 1994, 84, part 1, pp. 76-228.
3. GUSTAV SCHERZ, Niels Stensen, eine Biographie, 2 vols. (Leipzig: St. Benno-Verlag, 1987/88) is the most comprehensive biography. I also refer to TROELS KARDEL, "Steno, Life, Science, Philosophy", Acta Historia Scientiarum Naturalium et Medicinalium [AHSNM], (ISSN 0065-1311), vol. 42 (Copenhagen, 1994), pp. 1-111.
4. KARDEL, "Stensen's myology in historical perspective", pp. 1-57, in Steno on muscles (cit. note 1), pp. 46-47.
5. ID., "Niels Stensen's geometrical theory of muscle contraction (1667): a reappraisal", Journal of Biomechanics, 1990, 23: 953-965.
6. ID., "Function and structure in early modern muscular mechanics. Four episodes and a dialogue between Stensen and Borelli on two chief muscular system ", Acta Anatomica (Basel) 1997, 159: 61-70, with a dialogue constructed from quotations.
7. PAUL W. BRAND, ROBERT W. BEACH and DAVID E. THOMPSON, "Relative tension and potential excursion of muscles in the forearm and hand", Journal of Hand Surgery, 1981, 6: 209-219.
8. Brand quoted Steno from EYVIND BASTHOLM, The History of Muscle Physiology, «Acta Historica Scientiarim Naturalium et Medicinalium» (Copenhagen, 1950), vol. 7: 135-142, p. 153.
9. KAI-NAN AN, F.C. HUI, BERNARD F. MORREY, RONALD L. LINSCHEID and EDMUND Y. CHAO, "Muscles across the elbow joint: A biomechanical analysis", Journal of Biomechanics, 1981, 14: 659-669.
10. EGBERT OTTEN, "Concepts and models of functional architecture in skeletal muscles", Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews, 1985, 16: 89-137.
11. REINOUT D. WOITTIEZ, PETER A. HUIJING, HERMAN B.K. BOOM and RIENTS H. ROZENDAAL, "A three-dimensional muscle model: a quantified relation between form and function of skeletal muscles", Journal of Morphology, 1984, 182: 95-113 with the first detailed computer-generated observation-matched model of muscle contraction.
12. See Also MELISSA G. HOY, FELIX E. ZAJAC and M.E. GORDON, "A musculoskeletal model of the human lower extremity", Journal of Biomechanics, 1990, 23: 157-169 (Fig. 1c),
13. and RICHARD L. LIEBER, CYNTHIA G. BROWN and CHRISTINE L. TRESTIK, "Model of muscle-tendon interaction during frog semitendinosus fixed-end contractions", Journal of Biomechanics, 1992, 25: 421-428.
14. ROBERT J. STONE and JUDITH A. STONE, Atlas of skeletal muscles, 5th ed. (Boston: McGraw Hill International edition, 2006).
15. A HUIJING, "Muscle, the motor of movement: properties in function, experiment and modelling", Journal of Biomechanics, 1998, 8: 61-77.
16. "Patet, quocunque modo componatur musculus, esse in eo unum parallelepipedum carnium & duo prismata tetragona tendinum". STENO , Elementorum, in Steno on muscles (cit. note 1), p. 114.
17. "Prodiit hisce diebus Cartesii Tractatus de Homine una cum figuris a Florentio Schuylio, [...], in figuræ conspiduntur non inelegantes, quas ex ingenioso cerebro prodiisse certum est; an vero tales in ullo cerebro conspiciendæ, valde dubitarem": in VILHELM MAAR (ed.), Nicolai Stenonis - Opera Philosophica [OPH], 2 vols. (Copenhagen: Tryde, 1910), vol. 1: p. 120.
18. "Il me vint envie un après disné de faire une comparaison entre la fabrique du cæur et celuy des muscules, desquels je tenois le système de Mons. Des Cartes infallible, et pour cette fin je prens un pieds d'un lapin que j'avois dissequé peu de temps auparavant; ou le premier muscle, que j'en prenne, au premier coup m'ouvre la fabrique du muscle, que même jusques a ce temps la n'avoit été connu de personnes et que renversoit tout le systerne de Mons. Des Cartes": STENO, Epistolae, ed. by Gustav Scherz, 2 vols. (Copenhagen: Nyt Nordisk Forlag, 1952), vol. 1: p. 367, E143. See also note 19.
19. RENÉ DESCARTES, Treatise of man, translated and with commentary by THOMAS S. Hall (Cambridge, MA: HWvard University Press, 1972), p. 25.
20. JAN SWAMMERDAM, Biblia Naturae (1737) [reprint in Datch + German transl.], in Opuscula Selecta Neerlandicorum de Arte Medica, 1907, 1: 83-135.
21. According to Mary P. Winsor, Swammerdam showed his experiment to Steno in 1663, see Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1976), 13: p. 170.
22. According to Lindeboom, Swammerdam turned to the study of muscle and nerve in 1665, see GERIT A. LINDEBOOM, "Dog and Fish", in TH. H. LUNSINGH SCHEUERLEER and G.H.M. POSTHUMUS MEYJES (eds.), Leiden University in the seventeenth century (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1975), pp. 278-293.
23. SWAMMERDAM, Tractatus physico-anatomico-medicus, De respiratione (Leiden: Gaasbeeck, 1667), p. 60.
24. STENO, Nova musculorum & cordis fabrica (Copenhagen: Matthias Godicchen, 1667), reprint and English translation, see ID., Steno on Muscles (cit. note 1), pp. 58-75.
25. ID., De musculis et glandulis observationum specimen (Copenhagen, 1664), excerpts from translation by Paul Maquet by permission.
26. See also English translation, London, 1711/1714 in KARDEL, "A specimen upon the muscles", in JACOB E. POULSEN and EGILL SNORRASON (eds.), Nicolaus Steno 1638-1686 (Gentofte: Nordisk Insulinlaboratorium, 1986), 97-134; p. 112.
27. "He observes next, that the Heart performs the like operation with the Muscles, to wit, to contract the Flesh;: which action how it can have a different cause from that of the Contraction made in the Muscles, where there is so great a parity and agreement in the Vessels, he sees not. And as for the Phænomena, that occur, of the Motion of the Heart, he undertakes to explicate them all, from the Ductus or Position of the Fibres; but refers for the performance of this undertaking to another Treatise, he intends to publish". Phil. Trans., 1 (1665/66), p. 176.
28. See also KARDEL, Steno, Life, Science, Philosophy (cit. note 2), p. 30.
29. "La premiere partie de ses Observations regarde les muscles, an rang desquels il soûtient qu'il faut mettre cæur; parce que sa composition, non plus que son action, ne differe en rien de celle des autres muscles: De sorte qu'il ne veut pas qu'on considere le cæur comme estant composé d'une substance qui luy soit propre & particuliere, ny comme le principe de la chaleur naturelle, de la sanguification, & des esprits vitaux. Cela va à renverser ce qu'il y a de plus constant dans la Medecine. [...] Ce sçavant Danois est presentement a Paris, où il fait tous les jours des dissections, en presence de beaucoup de personnes curieuses, & il en a fait dans l'Escole de Medicine, où il s'est fait admirer de tout le monde par ses nouvelles découvertes". Journal des Sçavans, 1665, p. 139.
30. SCHERZ, "Niels Stensen's Reisen", in ID. (ed.), "Steno as Geologist", AHSNM, vol. 23 (Copenhagen, 1971), pp. 9-133.
31. See also HARRIET M. HANSEN, "A traveller in neuro-anatomy; Stensen 1664-1670", Journal of History of Neurosciences, 1996, 5: 100-107.
32. André Graindorge to Pierre Daniel Huët; eighteen letters in the Royal Library, Copenhagen, Ny kgl. Saml. 4660, 4°.
33. See SCHERZ, "Stensen i Paris", Fund og Forskning (Copenhagen) 1969, 16: 43-52.
34. See also note 21.
35. e siècle", Isis, 1914 /19, 2: 37-89, pp. 71 and 73;
36. FRANCO A. MESCHINI, Neurofisiologia Cartesiana (Firenze: Leo S. Olschki, 1998), p. 118;
37. and RENATO G. MAZZOLINI, "Schemes and Models of the Thinking Machine", in PIETRO CORSI (ed.), The Enchanted Loom, Chapters in the History of Neuroscience (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 68-72.
38. The Muscle-brain relation is also addressed from the dissection of a shark in Canis Carchariae dissectum caput, OPH (cit. note 13), vol. 2: p. 124, "Quis itaque non videt, miraculo quasi annumerandum esse, si tot carnes tam paucis nervis ad notum determinarentur?"
39. Two main works on muscles 1664 and 1667 were both presented as "specimens", i.e. preliminary communications, with no further follow up.
40. "ut pateat musculorum systema geometricum, quod hìc propositurus sum, non esse ab ingenio confictum, sed ab experientia depromptum". STENO, Elementorum, in Steno ou muscles (cit. note 1), pp. 90-91. The muscles in Steno's Tabula II are from the left gastrocnemius, biceps brachii, semimembranosus and semitendinosus (Fig. 1).
41. Ibid., pp. 96-97.
42. A more detailed account, see KARDEL, Stensen's Myology (cit. note 3), Ch. 4, pp. 17-22.
43. Steno on muscles (cit. note 1), pp. 138-140.
44. Ibid., p. 140 ff. Euclid XI, 29.
45. For a list of all Steno's references to Euclid, see Steno on Muscles (cit. note 1), p. 243.
46. Euclid I, 35.
47. Euclid I, 35 according to axiom I.1.
48. Steno on muscles (cit. note 1), pp. 83-85.
49. Ibid., p. 121.
50. Phil. Trans., 1667, 2: 627. The anonymous reviewer is Henry Oldenburg, TOSHIHIRO YAMADA, in press.
51. Steno on muscles (cit. note 1), pp. 94-95.
52. See e.g., BASTHOLM, "The history of muscle physiology" (cit. note 6).
53. VOLKER ZIMMERMANN, "On the history of theories of muscular contraction to 1725", in Die Werke von Daniel Bernoulli (Basel: Birkhäuser, 1996), vol. 1, pp. 21-31.
54. MARGARET A. NAYLER, The insoluble problem: Muscle in the mid to late seventeenth century (Australia, University of Melbourne, 1993). Nayler's unpublished doctoral dissertation is available for study at the Wellcome Historical Medical Library in London, England.
55. GWENETH WHITTERIDGE (ed. and transl.), "The anatomical lectures of William Harvey" (Edinburgh and London: E. & S. Livingstone, 1964), p. 63.
56. THOMAS BIRCH, The History of the Royal Society of London, 4 vols. (London: A. Millar, 1756), vol. 1, p. 36.
57. See NAYLER, Introduction to Croone (cit. note 41), pp. 9-12.
58. See KARDEL, Stensen's myology (cit. note 3), pp. 9-10 with Charleton's figure reproduced.
59. WILLIAM CROONE, "On the reason of the movement of the muscles", translated by Paul Maquet with an introduction by Margaret A. Nayler, Transactions American Philosopbical Society, vol. 90, pan 1 (Philadelphia, 2000), p, 123, and p. 58 (illustration).
60. Croone mentioned his encounter with Steno at Montpellier in a letter to the editor, Commelin, in Amsterdam, who added the letter as a preface in the second edition of Croone's De ratione motus musculorum (Amsterdam: Commelin, 1667).
61. See note 44.
62. SCHERZ, "Nicolaus Steno and his Indice", AHSNM (Copenhagen: Munks-gaard, 1958), 15: 292.
63. LEONARD G. WELSON, "William Croone's theory of muscular contraction", Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 1961, 16: p. 168 and note 37.
64. CROONE, "An hypothesis of the structure of muscle, and the reason of its contraction; Read in the Surgeon's Theatre, anno 1674, 1675", in ROBERT HOOKE (ed.), Philosophical collection, vol. 2, section 8 (London: Moses Pitt, 1681), pp. 22-25.
65. BIRCH, Royal Society (cit. note 39), p. 412.
66. See also ROBERT G. FRANK Jr., Harvey and the Oxford physiologists (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), p. 233.
67. "Glisson's experiment", ROBERT T. GUNTHER, Early Science in Cambridge (Oxford: University Press, 1937), p. 313.
68. "The animal Spirits which enter and fill the ordained series of the Fibres at so many little places, flow thither by the passages of the Nerves; [...] the Spirits which are seated in the Fibres [...] receive nourishment from the arterious blood there plentifully flowing; [...] so that their force being stirred up by a strong endeavour, it seems like the explosion of Gun-powder": THOMAS WILLIS, Cerebri anatome, London, D. Pauh, 1664, Englished in London 1681 by Samuel Pordage, p. 129.
69. See RAYMOND HIERONS and ALFRED MEYER, "Willis's place in the history of muscle physiology", Proceedings Royal Society Medicine, 1964, 57: 687-692.
70. KARDEL, "Willis and Steno on muscles", Journal of History of Neurosciences, 1992, 5: 100-107.
71. Phil. Trans., 1670, 5: 1178.
72. RICHARD LOWER, Tractatus de Corde (London, 1669), reprinted with English translation Kenneth J. Franklin, in GUNTHER (ed.), Early science in Oxford (Oxford: University Press, 1932), vol. 9, pp. 77-79.
73. FRANK, Harvey and the Oxford physiologists (cit. note 46), p. 232.
74. NAYLER, The insoluble problem (cit. note 37), p. 298.
75. JOHN MAYOW, Medico-Physical works; being a translation of Tractatus quinque medicopbysici (Oxford, 1674), translated by A. Crum Brown and Leonard Dubbin (Edinburgh, 1907, Alembic Club Reprints no. 17, 1957).
76. Ibid., p. 246 ff.
77. NAYLER, The insoluble problem (cit. note 37), pp. 280 and 451.
78. The Steno-experiment is described in eleven lines in the Canis Garchariae, OPH (cit. note 13), vol. 2, p. 125.
79. Efforts to reproduce the experiment successively engaged the following members of the Royal Society from 6 February 1668: Oldenburg, Croone, Lower, Clarke, and Hooke. The experiment was finally presented by King on 2 April 1668. See ADOLF FALLER, "Zur Diskussion um das Stensen, Experiment", Gesnerus, 1985, 42: 19-34;
80. F.N.L. (NOEL) POYNTER, "Nicolaus Steno and the Royal Society of London", in G. SCHERZ (ed.), "Steno and brain research in the seventeenth century", Analecta Medico-historica, 1968, 3: 273-280.
81. GIOVANNI A, BORELLI, On the movement of animals, translated by Paul Maquet (Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 1989), Ch. 1, Proposition V.
82. Ibid., p. 237.
83. WILSON, Croone's theory of muscular contraction (cit. note 44).
84. BORELLI, On the movement of animals (cit. note 58), pp. 119-120, 236.
85. CROONE, An hypothesis (cit. note 45), p. 25.
86. On expanding globules, see DOROTHY M. NEEDHAM, Machina carnis (Cambridge, G.B.: University Press, 1971), pp. 20-23 with iffustration from Leeuwcnhoek facing p. 224.
87. BORELLI, On the movement of animals (cit. note 58), p. 250.
88. GEOFFREY GORHAM, "Mind-body dualism and the Harvey-Descartes controverw", Journal of the History of Ideas, 1994, 55:211-234.
89. See also THOMAS FUCHS, Mechanization of the heart: Harvey and Descartes (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2001).
90. Steno on Muscles (cit. note 1), P. 201.
91. Borelli to Malpighi, see ScHw (ed.), "Steno; Geological Papers", AHSNM (Odense, 1969), vol. 20, p. 42, note 56.
92. See also MARIA L. BONELLI, "The Accademia del Cimento and Niels Stensen", in SCHERZ, Steno and Brain Research (cit. note 57), p. 257;
93. STEFANO DE ROSA, "Cosimo III de' Medici e Nicco1ò Stenone", in KAREN ASCANI, HANS KERMTT and GUNVOR SKYTTE (eds.), Niccolò Stenone (1638-1686);
94. Anatomista, geologo, vescovo (Roma: L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2003), pp. 64-69.
95. THOMAS BARTHOLIN, Anatome quartum renovate (Leiden: Huguentan, 1677), Tabula III, and "De musculis in genere", p. 40.
96. JOHN HARRIS, Lexicon Technicum (London, 1704), unpaginated; entry under Muscle, quoted from NAYLER, The insoluble problem (cit. note 37), p. 575.
97. See also KARDEL, Stensen's myology (cit. note 3), pp. 37-38
98. and fig. 16 reproduced from JOHANNES GOTTSCHED, Dissertatio de motu musculorum (Rege Mont. [Königsberg] 1694) in ALBRECHT VON HALLER (ed.), Disputationum anatomicarum selectarum (Gottingae: Vandenhoeck, 1748), vol. 3.
99. "Dn. Steno in suo Myol. specimine musculum decurtari arbitratur sine novie materiæ accesione, nimirum per solam mutationem figuræ, commigrando à pgrallelogrammo obliquangolo in rectius: quæ opinio prorsus ridicula & pro mero lusu ingenii Authoris habenda": MAQUET (ed. and trans.), "Two Dissertations by Johann Bernoulli", commentary by Troels Kardel, Transactions American Philosophical Society, vol. 87, part 3 (Philadelphia, 1997), pp. 102-109.
100. Acta eruditorum, 1694, pp. 200-206.
101. JOHN BROWNE, Myographia nova: or a graphical description of all the muscles in the human body as they arise in dissection (London: Milbourn, 1698), 171ff.
102. A dispute on swelling muscle structures continued between P. Michelotti and J. Keill, see Acta eruditorum, 1721, pp. 395-397.
103. "Inflationem musculorum sine praevio spirituum. animalium per nervos in fibras musculares inflexu non posse Physiologorum statuunt plerique". Die Werke von Daniel Bernoulli (Basel: Birkhäuser, 1996), vol. 1, p. 92.
104. Johan Bernoulli's mathematics on muscle contraction, see the essay by AUGUST ZIGGELAAR, "§ 16-17 rendered in modern mathematical terms", in MAQUET, Dissertations by Bernoulli (cit. note 69), pp. 18-20.
105. "Neque potest explicari ex sola angulorum mutatione, absque admissione fluidi alicujus accessorii, uti quidem explicare tentavit N. Stenonis": HERMANN BOERHAAVE, Prielectiones, ed. by Albertus Haller, Göttingen, 1742, vol. 2, p. 429.
106. Quoted from HUBERT STEINKE, "Irritating experiments. Haller's concepts and the European controversy on irritability and sensibility, 1750-90". Clio Medica, 2005, 76: p. 100.
107. KARDEL, Function and Structure (cit. note 5), p. 66.
108. NAYLER, Introduction to Croone (cit. note 41), p. 48.
109. "Neque providet Ill. Stenonius tenui fluidæ materiæ, quam ex ejus hypothesi oportet in fibrarum interfalla effundi, nisi velit inania fieri. Dum enim rhombi in quadrata abeunt, eodem tempore etiam erum a dilatantur, fiuntque capaciores": ALBRECHT VON HALLER, Elementa physiologiæ corporis humani (Lausanne: Grasset, 1762), vol. 4, p. 550.
110. CHRISTIAN C.A. GOSCH, Udsigt over Danmarks zoologiske Litteratur (Copenhagen: Hoffensberg, Jespersen e trap, 1873), vol. 2, pan 1, pp. 196-206.
111. ANGELO FABRONI, Vitae Italorum (Pisa: Carolus Ginesius, 1779), vol. 3, pp. 24-25: "Mirandum sane est Stenonem fugisse rem Geometris notissimam; non posse, obliquangula parallelogrammata in quadrata abire aut rectugula, quin nova accedat materies, qua majores tunc factae areae repleantur". Fabroni gave the references to, Boerhaave quoted in note 73.
112. MICHAEL FOSTER, Lectures on the history of physiology (Cambridge, UK: University Press, 1901), p. 55 ff.
113. OPH (cit. note 21), Editor's introduction, p. XVIII.
114. See also KARDEL, "On perhaps the weakest of Stensen's works: What causes muscular movement, Inflation or Contraction?", in ASCANI, KERMIT and SKYTTE, Niccolò Stenone (cit. note 66), pp. 59-63.
115. Maar took over from von Haller, Elementa physiologiæ, an argument based on Borelli: "Fabrica ipsa non vera est. Ranim est ejusmodi musculos dari, quorum fibræ carneæ cum utroque tendine faciant angulos obliquos".
116. BASTHOLM, The history of muscle physiology (cit. note 6), p. 162.
117. JOHN F. FULTON, Muscular contraction (Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 1926), p. 12 ff.
118. FULTON and WILSON, Selected readings in the history of physiology, 2nd ed. (Springfield: Charles C. Thomas Publ., 1966), pp. 213-215.
119. KARL E. ROTHSCHUH, History of physiology, English translation by G.B. Risse (Huntington, N.Y.: Robert E. Krieger, 1973), pp. 94-95 (German ed., 1953).
120. Placentinus (1627), Bidloo (1685), Pfuhl (1937), Benninghof and Rollhäuser (1952), Gans and Bock (1965), Alexander (1968), for references see KARDEL, Stensen's myology (cit. note 3), pp. 5, 38 and 49.
121. JOHAN L. VAN LEEUWEN and CEES W. SPOOR, "Modelling mechanically stable muscle architecture", Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B (1992), 336: 275-292.
122. "Die Myologie ist das vielleicht am meisten umstrittene Werk Stensens": SCHERZ, Niels Stensen, eine Biographie (cit. note 2), vol. 1, p. 69.
123. Cfr. supra, note 35.
124. NAYLER, The insoluble problem (cit. note 37), pp. 274-276.
125. ID., Introduction to Croone (cit. note 41), p. 48.
126. KARDEL, Steno, Life, Science, Philosophy (cit. note 2), pp. 99-100.
127. NAYLER, The insoluble problem (cit. note 37), p. 299.
128. Bernoulli on Steno's myology: "quod hoc modo contractic, musculi rectanguli explicari non possit nisi penetratio corporis statuatur, concipi nequit, gra quo musculus moveatur & quale ejus sit primum movens, vel qua ratione tritum illud axioma Physicum salvetur: Omne quod movetur, movetur ab alio": MAQUET, Dissertations by Bernoulli (cit. note 69), p. 108.
129. Aristotelian physics requires the operation of pushing and pulling to effect locomotion, see MICHAEL F. FRAMPTON, "Aristotle's cardiocentric model of animal locomotion", Journal History Biology, 1991, 24: 291-330, p. 314.
130. Translated by Paul Maquet, unpubl., by permission.
131. Cfr. supra, note 13 and 19.
132. KARDEL, Steno; Life, Science, Philosophy (cit. note 2), pp. 96-97.