rasted; and
there are differences of degree noticeable when the proportions and
the mobility of the metacarpals and metatarsals, with their respective
digits, are compared together.

The same two classes of differences become obvious when the muscles of
the hand are compared with those of the foot.

Three principal sets of muscles, called "flexors," bend the fingers and
thumb, as in clenching the fist, and three sets--the extensors--extend
them, as in straightening the fingers. These muscles are all "long
muscles"; that is to say, the fleshy part of each, lying in and being
fixed to the bones of the arm, is, at the other end, continued into
tendons, or rounded cords, which pass into the hand, and are ultimately
fixed to the bones which are to be moved. Thus, when the fingers are
bent, the fleshy parts of the flexors of the fingers, placed in the arm,
contract, in virtue of their peculiar endowment as muscles; and pulling
the tendinous cords, connected with their ends, cause them to pull down
the bones of the fingers towards the palm.

Not only are the principal flexors of the fingers and of the thumb long
muscles, but they remain quite distinct from one another through their
whole length.

In the foot, there are also three principal flexor muscles of the digits
or toes, and three principal extensors; but one extensor and one flexor
are short muscles; that is to say, their fleshy parts are not situated
in the leg (which corresponds with the arm), but in the back and in the
sole of the foot--regions which correspond with the back and the palm of
the hand.

Again, the tendons of the long flexor of the toes, and of the long
flexor of the great toe, when they reach the sole of the foot, do not
remain distinct from one another, as the flexors in the palm of the
hand do, but they become united and commingled in a very curious
manner--while their united tendons receive an accessory muscle connected
with the heel-bone.

But perhaps the most absolutely distinctive character about the muscles
of the foot is the existence of what is termed the 'peronaeus longus',
a long muscle fixed to the outer bone of the leg, and sending its tendon
to the outer ankle, behind and below which it passes, and then crosses
the foot obliquely to be attached to the base of the great toe. No
muscle in the hand exactly corresponds with this, which is eminently a
foot muscle.

To resume--the foot of man is distinguished from his hand by the
foll