characteristic of all
regions of the human body; and it may be doubted whether he who pursues
either mode of practice, wholly exclusive of the other, can do so with
honest purpose and large range of understanding, if he be not equally
well acquainted with the subject matter of both. It is, in fact, more
triflingly fashionable than soundly reasonable, to seek to define the
line of demarcation between the special callings of medicine and
surgery, for it will ever be as vain an endeavour to separate the one
from the other without extinguishing the vitality of both, as it would
be to sunder the trunk from the head, and give to each a separate living
existence. The necessary division of labour is the only reason that can
be advanced in excuse of specialisms; but it will be readily agreed to,
that that practitioner who has first laid within himself the foundation
of a general knowledge of matters relationary to his subject, will
always be found to pursue the speciality according to the light of
reason and science.

Anatomy--the  the knowledge based on principle--is the
foundation of the curative art, cultivated as a science in all its
branchings; and comparison is the nurse of reason, which we are fain to
make our guide in bringing the practical to bear productively. The human
body, in a state of health, is the standard whereunto we compare the
same body in a state of disease. The knowledge of the latter can only
exist by the knowledge of the former, and by the comparison of both.

Comparison may be fairly termed the pioneer to all certain knowledge. It
is a potent instrument--the only one, in the hands of the pathologist,
as well as in those of the philosophic generalizer of anatomical facts,
gathered through the extended survey of an animal kingdom. We best
recognise the condition of a dislocated joint after we have become well
acquainted with the contour of its normal state; all abnormal conditions
are best understood by a knowledge of what we know to be normal
character. Every anatomist is a comparer, in a greater or lesser degree;
and he is the greatest anatomist who compares the most generally.

Impressed with this belief, I have laid particular emphasis on imitating
the character of the normal form of the human figure, taken as a whole;
that of its several regions as parts of this whole, and that of the
various organs (contained within those regions) as its integrals or
elements. And in order to present this subject of relative anatomy in
more vivid reality to the understanding of the student, I have chosen
the medium of illustrating by figure rather than by that of written
language, which latter, taken alone, is almost impotent in a study of
this nature.

It is wholly impossible for anyone to describe form in words without the
aid of figures. Even the mathematical strength of Euclid would avail
nothing, if shorn of his diagrams. The professorial robe is impotent
without its diagrams. Anatomy being a science existing by demonstration,
(for as much as form in its actuality is the language of nature,) must
be discoursed of by the instrumentality of figure.

An anatomical illustration enters the understanding straight-forward in
a direct passage, and is almost independent of the aid of written
language. A picture of form is a proposition which solves itself. It is
an axiom encompassed in a frame-work of self-evident truth. The best
substitute for Nature herself, upon which to teach the knowledge of her,
is an exact representation of her form.

Every surgical anatomist will (if he examine himself) perceive that,
previously to undertaking the performance of an operation upon the
living body, he stands reassured and self-reliant in that degree in
which he is capable of conjuring up before his mental vision a distinct
picture of his subject. Mr. Liston could draw the same anatomical
picture mentally which Sir Charles Bell's handicraft could draw in
reality of form and figure. Scarpa was his own draughtsman.

If there may be any novelty now-a-days possible to be recognised upon
the out-trodden track of human relative anatomy, it can only be in
truthful and well-planned illustration. Under this view alone may the
anatomist plead an excuse for reiterating a theme which the beautiful
works of Cowper, Haller, Hunter, Scarpa, Soemmering, and others, have
dealt out so respectably. Except the human anatomist turns now to what
he terms the practical ends of his study, and marshals his little
knowledge to bear upon those ends, one may proclaim anthropotomy to have
worn itself out. Dissection can do no more, except to repeat
Cruveilhier. And that which Cruveilhier has done for human anatomy,
Muller has completed for the physiological interpretation of human
anatomy; Burdach has philosophised, and Magendie has experimented to the
full upon this theme, so far as it would permit. All have pushed the
subject to its furthest limits, in one aspect of view. The narrow circle
is footworn. All the needful facts are long since gathered, sown, and
known. We have been seekers after those facts from the days of
Aristotle. Are we to put off the day of attempting interpretation for
three thousand years more, to allow the human physiologist time to slice
the brain into more delicate atoms than he has done hitherto, in order
to coin more names, and swell the dictionary? No! The work must now be
retrospective, if we would render true knowledge progressive. It is not
a list of new and disjointed facts that Science at present thirsts for;
but she is impressed with the conviction that her wants can alone be
supplied by the creation of a new and truthful theory,--a generalization
which the facts already known are sufficient to supply, if they were
well ordered according to their natural relationship and mutual
dependence. "Le temps viendra peut-etre," says Fontenelle, "que 1'on
joindra en un corps regulier ces membres epars; et, s'ils sont tels
qu'on le souhaite, ils s'assembleront en quelque sorte d'eux-memes.
Plusieurs verites separees, des qu'elles sont en assez grand nombre,
offrent si vivement a 1'esprit leurs rapports et leur mutuelle
dependance, qu'il semble qu'apres les avoir detachees par une espece de
violence les unes des autres, elles cherchent naturellement a se
reunir."--(Preface sur l'utilite des Sciences, &c.)

The comparison of facts already known must henceforward be the scalpel
which we are to take in hand. We must return by the same road on which
we set out, and reexamine the things and phenomena which, as novices, we
passed by too lightly. The travelled experience may now sit down and
contemplate.

That which I have said and proved elsewhere in respect to the skeleton
system may, with equal truth, be remarked of the nervous system--namely,
that the question is not in how far does the limit of diversity extend
through the condition of an evidently common analogy, but by what rule
or law the uniform ens is rendered the diverse entity? The womb of
anatomical science is pregnant of the true interpretation of the law of
unity in variety; but the question is of longer duration than was the
life of the progenitor. Though Aristotle and Linnaeus, and Buffon and
Cuvier, and Geoffroy St. Hilaire and Leibnitz, and Gothe, have lived and
spoken, yet the present state of knowledge proclaims the Newton of
physiology to be as yet unborn. The iron scalpel has already made
acquaintance with not only the greater parts,