The Wilmingtonian, And Delaware Advertiser

Power of the Muscles.--One of the most wonderful properties of the muscles, is the extraordinary force they exert, although they are composed of such slender threads or fibres. The following facts, in relation to this point, are demonstrated by the celebrated Borelli in his work De Motu Animalium.

When a man lifts with his teeth, a weight of two hundred pounds, with a rope fastened to the jaw teeth, the muscles named Temporalis and Masseters, with which people chew, and which perform this work, exert a force of above fifty thousand pounds weight. If any one hanging his arm directly downwards, lifts a weight of 20 pounds with the third or last joint of his thumb the muscle, which bends the thumb and bears that weight, exerts a force about three thousand pounds. When a man standing upon his feet, leaps or springs forward to the height of two feet, if the weight of such a man be one hundred and fifty pounds. the muscles employed in that action will exert a force of about three hundred thousand pounds. The heart at each pulse or contraction, by which it protrudes the blood out of the arteries into the veins exerts a force of above a hundred thousand pounds.

Dick's Christian Philosopher.