Chap. III. Of Ligaments in General.
LIgamentum a Band or Tie, is by the Greeks called Súndesmos. The Ancients, as Hippocrates, Aristotle and Galen somwhere, call it Nervum and Nervum colliga∣tum a Nerve, and a twisted Nerve or Nerve tied together; because in shape and colour it counterfets a Nerve: and otherwise the term Ligament, may in a large signification be applied to any part, which fastens divers parts together. Also Galen calls the beginning of a Muscle Ligamentum, part whereof is thought to turn to a Tendon. All these are improper acceptations. I shall now decipher a Ligament properly so called.
Its Efficient is the Ligament-making Power.
Its Matter is a clammy roaping part of the Seed.
Its Use is, like a cord to bind together the parts of the body, especially the Bones, and so to keep them together, in the Head, Chest, Back, and Limbs, that they may not be dislocated or dispointed.
Because of its most strong cleaving thereunto, a Liga∣gament is said to arise (though it be indeed made of the Seed) from the Bone primarily, somtimes from a Gristle, gristly bone or Membrane: and its said to be inserted into a Bone, Gristle, Muscle, or some part. Or if you would rather have it so; Ligaments grow among the Bones, of in the Bones.
Their Situation. Some are without among the Bones, as the grisly Ligaments so called, which are thick and commonly round: others are wound externally about the bones which are thin and membranous.
As to Figure: some are broader which Anatomists term membranous Ligaments, as hath been said; others are longer, which are called Nervous Ligaments. And they call them so because of their resemblance, not as if a Ligament were truly membranous or nervous. So they are called membranous, which being broad and thin do compass the Joynts, also which are wrapt about Tendons and Muscles.
Its Substance is solid, white, bloodless, softer than a Gristle, harder than Nerves and Membranes: for it is as it were of a middle Nature betwixt a Gristle and a Nerve.
It is without Cavity, Sense or Motion. It was to be without Sense, least it should be alwaies pained in Moti∣ons; when as the Ligaments are made somtimes longer and shorter, that is to say, are contracted and extended. Some nevertheless wil have membranous Ligaments to feel, but they must grant it to be so, by means of mem∣branes and not of their own proper substance.
For this substance of theirs is as Galen tels us divisible into fibres visible to the sight, which experience also con∣firms.
Now this Substance is in some places softer and more membranous than in others, as in all Ligaments wel-neer, which go round about the Joynts; and among these, it is softer about the Joynt of the Shoulder, than about that of the Hip; and yet softer where it goes about the inter∣joyntings of the fingers. But in other places the sub∣stance is harder▪ and as it were in part gristly, and there∣fore they are in such places termed gristly Ligaments; and they are such as lie concealed among the Bones, as that which goes from the Head of the Thigh, into the Hip-joynt.