CHAP. 82.—THE BREAST: THE RIBS.
Nature has placed the breast, or, in other words, certain
bones, around the diaphragm and the organs of life, but not
around the belly, for the expansion of which it was necessary
that room should be left. Indeed, there is no animal that
has any bones around the belly. Man is the only creature
that has a broad breast; in all others it is of a carinated
shape, in birds more particularly, and most of all, the aquatic
birds. The ribs of man are only eight in number; swine
have ten, the horned animals thirteen, and serpents thirty.
