Pavel Novotny

Jeans are pants, or trousers, made from denim. Mainly designed for work, they became popular among teenagers starting in the 1950s. Historic brands include Levi's and Wrangler. Today, jeans are a very popular form of casual dress around the world and come in many styles and colors, with the "blue jeans" particularly identified with the American culture, especially the American Old West. Americans spent more than $14 billion on jeans in 2004.

The jeans name comes from blu di Genoa or Bleu Genes, that literally means blue of Genoa. Jeans fabric was made in Chieri, a town near Turin (Italy), during the Renaissance and popularised around the 1500s. It was sold through the harbour of Genoa, which was the capital of an independent republic, and a naval power. The first were made for the Genoese Navy because it required all-purpose pants for its sailors that could be worn wet or dry, and whose legs could easily be rolled up to wear while swabbing the deck. These jeans would be laundered by dragging them in large mesh nets behind the ship, and the sea water would bleach them white. They were especially worn by Genoan sailors and stevedores who worked in Italy and France, and in 1860, during the Battle of Marsala, Sicily by a general named Giuseppe Garibaldi and his Italian troops.

While there is significant variation in anatomical proportions between people, there are many references to body proportions that are intended to be canonical, either in art, measurement, or medicine.

In measurement, body proportions are often used to relate two or more measurements based on the body. A cubit, for instance, is supposed to be six palms. While convenient, these ratios may not reflect the physiognomic variation of the individuals using them.

Similarly, in art, body proportions are the study of relation of human body, or in general, animal body, parts to each other and the whole. These ratios are used in veristic depictions of the figure, and also become part of an aesthetic canon within a culture.

Torso is an anatomical term for the central part of the many animal bodies (including that of the human) from which extend the neck and limbs. It is sometimes referred to as the trunk. The torso includes the thorax and abdomen.

Major organs
Most critical organs are housed within the torso. In the upper chest, the heart and lungs are protected by the rib cage, and the abdomen contains the majority of organs responsible for digestion: the liver, which respectively produces bile necessary for digestion; the large and small intestines, which extract nutrients from food; the anus, from which fecal wastes are excreted; the rectum, which stores feces; the gallbladder, which stores and concentrates bile and produces chyme; the ureters, which passes urine to the bladder; the bladder, which stores urine; and the urethra, which excretes urine and passes sperm through the seminal vesicles. Finally, the pelvic region houses both the male and female reproductive organs.


[edit] Major muscle groups
The torso also harbours many of the main groups of muscles in the body, including the:

pectoral muscles
abdominal muscles
lateral muscle

[edit] Innervation
The organs and muscles etc. are innervated by various nerves, mainly originating from thoracic vertebral segments. For instance, the cutaneous innervation is provided by:

Ventral cutaneous branches
Lateral cutaneous branches
Dorsal cutaneous branches