Anatomist

“ While the anatomist contents himself with describing the form and position of organs as they appear exposed, layer after layer, by his dissecting instruments, he does not pretend to soar any higher in the region of science than the humble level of other mechanical arts, which merely appreciate the fitting arrangement of things relative to one another, and combinative to the whole design of the form or machine of whatever species this may be, whether organic or inorganic. ”

“ Every anatomist, in order to comprehend the physiology and anatomy of this class, begins his analysis of the vertebrate skeleton by observing two distinct systems of organization—the dermal and the neurohæmal, heretofore supposed to be peculiar to vertebrates. Now, to which system, the dermal or the neurohæmal, do the extremities belong? No amount of ingenuity can satisfy the thoughtful student that the limbs are evolutions of the appendages of the neurohæmal axis. They are dermal. Even in mammalia they have no proper union, no true articulation with the spinal column. ”

“ Just as a knowledge of the construction of a machine is necessary to understand its action, so the anatomical analysis of an organ must precede a knowledge of its office. The term "physiological anatomy of an organ," so commonly used in text-books on physiology, illustrates the point. We can not appreciate the work of such an organ as the liver without a knowledge of the arrangement of its working units. The work of the anatomist concerns the statics of the body, that of the physiologist the dynamics; properly combined, they give a complete picture of the living organism. ”

“ Thus, anatomy is said to be necessary ‘to represent the bones, muscles tendons, and veins, as they appear on the surface of the human body;’ so that it is to be presumed, that the anatomist, when he has with his knife and instruments laid bare the internal structure of the body, sees at a glance what he did not before see; but that the artist, after poring over them all his life, is blind to the external appearance of veins, muscles, &c., till the seeing what is concealed under the skin enables him for the first time to see what appears through it. ”

“ A spinal column may be a uniform solid axis, or a highly diversified segmented axis. A limb may be an arm, or a leg, a wing, or a paddle. In every case the anatomist recognizes a specific type. He assigns the uniformities to the uniformity of the substance thus variously shaped, under a history which has been similar; the diversities he assigns to the various conditions under which the processes of growth have been determined. He never expects a muscular tissue to develop into a skeleton, a nervous tissue into a gland, an osseous tissue into a sensory organ. ”

“ The normal relative anatomy of the bloodvessels is taken by anatomists to be the more frequent disposition of their main trunks and branches, considered per se, and in connexion with neighbouring parts. But it will be seen by this avowal that those vessels are liable to many various conditions; and such is the case, in fact. No anatomist can pronounce with exactness the precise figure of vessels or other organs while they lie concealed beneath the surface. An approach to truth is all that the best experience can boast of. ”

“ Wistar applied it to every difficult piece of anatomical structure, and in his Museum of Models he has bequeathed a rich treasure to his successors in the Anatomical chair. No one could fail to become an anatomist who diligently attended his lectures. ”

“ No mixing of the contents of these bottles and jars can evolve life, or even the smallest speck of protoplasm.
The Anatomist.—The third scheme is that of the anatomist, who with keen-edged scalpel bends over the body after life has gone out of it, and traces the course of arteries and veins, the form and location of nerves, the attachment of muscular fibers, and in connection with the physiologist defines the functions of each separate organ. ”

“ As the kinds of apparatus before mentioned are not applied to the spinal marrow alone, but to the different nerves of the animal machine, they may afford to the anatomist an experimental myology; by means of which he can render sensible to the eye the fixed and moveable points of the muscles, and the real extent of their action.
Pg 95 COROLLARY VIII.
The experiments made on the bodies of persons who died a natural death, are of the greatest importance to physiology. ”

“ Movements for acquiring elasticity should by no means be confined to the limbs; the largest gains are to be secured in the deeper structures of the thorax, shoulders, back and loins. Here the expert eye of an anatomist is needed. Even more so in those most important structures of all, the abdominal organs. Large knowledge and experience are required to permit or encourage accurate adjustments of these parts. All movements, active or passive, of an educational character, should be made with the utmost accuracy of direction, or they fail in some measure of utility. ”

“ He collects together various assertions of the Greek anatomist, on the bones, the muscles and ligaments, the relations of veins and arteries, the nerves, the character of the peritoneum, the organs of the thorax, the skull and its contents, etc., and shows from each and all of these that reference had not been made to the human subject, and that therefore the statements were unreliable. ”

“ Every anatomist will tell you that there is nothing commoner, in dissecting the human body, than to meet with what are called muscular variations—that is, if you dissect two bodies very carefully, you will probably find that the modes of attachment and insertion of the muscles are not exactly the same in both, there being great peculiarities in the mode in which the muscles are arranged ”

“ The Museum, he said, had "only a beginning of such an anatomical collection as I have indicated is desirable * * *. We are accustomed to think that human anatomy is exhausted as a field for original research," a view to which the speaker did not subscribe. "There is ample material and scope for original work for half a dozen skilled anatomists for many years to come to supply the demands of this museum for illustrations of human morphology * * *," he added. ”

“ What is desired is a uniform set of anatomical names,—a system that shall be generally used by anatomists. At present the greatest diversity prevails as to the names to be applied to the different structures of the body. ”

“ Had anatomists only been as conversant with the dissection of the lower animals as they are with that of the human body, the matters that have hitherto kept them in a perplexity of doubt would, in my opinion, have met them freed from every kind of difficulty. ”

“ Anatomists and physicians of great eminence have observed to me, “Your anatomical researches have solved some important questions long held in dispute by physiologists, and are of great practical value.” ”

“ I would, however, respectfully suggest, that that theory of cerebral vertebræ, on which, in this question, the comparative anatomists proceed as their principle, and which finds as little support in the geologic record from the actual history of the fore limbs as from the actual history of the bones of the cranium, may be more ingenious than sound. It is a shrewd circumstance, that the rocks refuse to testify in its favor. ”

“ Those medical men, however, who are called anatomists have investigated with careful scrutiny, by dissecting processes, even living men, so far as men have been able to retain any life in the hands of the examiners; their researches have penetrated limbs, veins, nerves, bones, marrow, the internal vitals; and all to discover the nature of the body. ”

“ This is true, in precisely the same sense that the sculptor does not work for the anatomist, but for the common observer of life and nature. ”

“ Does not the fact that different comparative anatomists have arranged the same group of bones into one, three, four, six, and seven vertebral segments, show that the mode of determination is arbitrary, and the conclusions arrived at fanciful? May we not properly entertain great doubts as to any one scheme being more valid than the others? ”

“ The anatomical mechanism of the human body, considered as a whole, or divisible into regions, forms a study so closely bearing upon practice, that the surgeon, if he be not also a mechanician, and fully capable of making his anatomical knowledge suit with the common principles of mechanics, while devising methods for furthering the efforts, of Nature curatively, may be said to have studied anatomy to little or no purpose. ”

“ That department of anatomical research to which the name topographical strictly applies, as confining itself to the mere account of the form and relative location of the several organs comprising the animal body, is almost wholly isolated from the main questions of physiological and transcendental interest, and cannot, therefore, be supposed to speak in those comprehensive views which anatomy, taken in its widest signification as a science, necessarily includes. ”

“ Anatomy has been ever with me a favourite branch of my profession; and when a student, I never let slip an opportunity, time and material permitting, to improve myself in it by dissection. It was a passion with me; and whenever I met with a person extremely emaciated or finely developed, my anatomical eye would scan their proportions, and instead of paying them the usual courtesies of life, I would be thinking what glorious subjects they would be for museum preparations or dissection ”

“ A demand for a crucial examination of the skull, the heart, lungs, of the chest, the stomach, liver and other organs of the abdomen is made. The septum of the brain, the pericardium of the chest—the diaphragm of the abdomen which is a dividing septum between the abdomen and chest. In this examination we must know the reasons why any organs, vessel or any other substance is located at a given place. We must run with all the rivers of blood that travel through the system. ”

“ He laid down the general morphological principle that the fundamental organs have essentially the shape of tubular cavities, as appears in the first form of the central organ of the nervous system, in the two muscular and osseous tubes which form the walls of the body, and in the intestinal canal; and he followed out with admirable clearness the steps by which from these fundamental systems the other organs arise secondarily, such as the organs of sense, the glands, lungs, heart, vascular glands, Wolffian bodies, kidneys and generative organs. ”

“ There can be no more striking proof of the divinity of design than by such revelations as anatomical science everywhere manifests in facts such as this—viz., that each organ serves in most cases a double, and in many a triple purpose, in the animal economy. ”

“ Viewed superficially any of the sciences seem extremely simple; anatomically we may divide the body into flesh and bone, chemically we may make the simple divisions between solid, liquid and gas, but to thoroughly master the science of anatomy it is necessary to spend years in close application and learn to know all the little nerves, the ligaments which bind articulations between various parts of the bony structure, to study the several kinds of tissue and their disposition in our system where they form the bones, muscles, glands, etc., which in the aggregate we know as the human body. ”

“ Two other organic sciences, those of anatomy and physiology, have added enormously to our knowledge of animated nature. Anatomy, which is of high practical importance from its relation to surgery, is a science of ancient origin, many important facts concerning it having been discovered by the physicians of old Greece and Rome. This study continued during later centuries, and by the opening of the nineteenth the gross anatomy of the human frame was fairly well known, and many facts in its finer anatomy had been traced. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Lastly, with relation to their Use; some serve to support and carry the whole Body, as the Leg-Bones, and others are appointed to grind the Meat, as the Teeth; or else to form some Cavity, as the Skull-Bone, and those of the Ribs.
What are the Parts to be distinguished in the Bones?
They are the Body, the Ends, the Heads, the Neck, the Apophyses, the Epiphyses, the Condyli or Productions, the Cavities, the Supercilia or Lips, and the Ridges.
The Body is the greatest Part, and the middle of the Bone; the Ends are the two Extremities; the Heads are the great Protuberances at the Extremities ”

“ THE SURGICAL DISSECTION OF THE STERNO-CLAVICULAR OR TRACHEAL REGION, AND THE RELATIVE POSITION OF ITS MAIN BLOODVESSELS, NERVES, &c.
The law of symmetry governs the development of all structures which compose the human body; and all organized beings throughout the animal kingdom are produced in obedience to this law. The general median line of the human body is characterized as the point of fusion of the two sides; and all structures or organs which range this common centre are either symmetrically azygos, or symmetrically duplex. ”

“ While, as just stated, a complete presentation of the development of the abdominal cavity is not required, yet the student will find it of advantage to rehearse the main facts of vertebrate embryology, for the purpose of bringing a clear understanding of the manner in which the vertebrate body is built up to bear upon the problems which the special organs and structures of the body-cavity present for his consideration. ”