Anatomy

“ As you contemplate studying this science and have asked to know the necessary studies, I wish to impress it upon your minds that you begin with anatomy, and you end with anatomy, a knowledge of anatomy is all you want or need, as it is all you can use or ever will use in your practice, although you may live one hundred years. ”

“ And in the infinitely minute, as in the infinitely great, the seekers after natural knowledge, of the kinds called physical and chemical, have everywhere found a definite order and succession of events which seem never to be infringed.
And how has it fared with "Physick" and Anatomy? Have the anatomist, the physiologist, or the physician, whose business it has been to devote themselves assiduously to that eminently practical and direct end, the alleviation of the sufferings of mankind,—have they been able to confine their vision more absolutely to the strictly useful? ”

“ The anatomy of the human form, contemplated in reference to that of all other species of animals to which it bears comparison, constitutes the study of the comparative anatomist, and, as such, establishes the science in its full intent. But the anatomy of the human figure, considered as a species, per se, is confessedly the humblest walk of the understanding in a subject which, as anatomy, is relationary, and branches far and wide through all the domain of an animal kingdom. ”

“ And you may depend upon this, that the only physiology which is to be of any good whatever in medical practice, or in its application to the study of medicine, is that physiology which a man knows of his own knowledge; just as the only anatomy which would be of any good to the surgeon is the anatomy which he knows of his own knowledge. Another peculiarity I have found in the physiology which has been current, and that is, that in the minds of a great many gentlemen it has been supplanted by histology. ”

“ The provinces of Anatomy and Physiology may now, we believe, be looked upon as distinctly and permanently defined. Anatomy is understood to treat solely of the Structure of Living Bodies, and Physiology solely of their Functions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ because I profess both to learn and to teach anatomy, not from books but from dissections; not from the positions of philosophers but from the fabric of nature; ”

“ Near these are the books of anatomy, which do not so much contain descriptions of the parts of the human body, as the barbarous names which have been given them – neither likely to cure the patient of his disease nor the physician of his ignorance. ”

“ What I have found, and found so much reason to lament, is, that while anatomy has been taught as a science ought to be taught, as a matter of autopsy, and observation, and strict discipline; in a very large number of cases, physiology has been taught as if it were a mere matter of books and of hearsay. ”

“ Of what use is a knowledge of anatomy to man if he overlooks cause and effect in the results obtained by the machinery that anatomy should teach? He finds each part connected to all others with the wisdom that has given a set of plans and specifications that are without a flaw or omission. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is upon these facts that I have founded my system of Stomachology; and contemplating what has been done, what is doing, and what is likely to be done, in the analogous science of phrenology, I do not despair of seeing the human body mapped out, and marked all over with faculties, feelings, propensities, and powers, like a tattooed New Zealander. The study of anatomy will then be entirely superseded, and the scientific world would be guided, as the fashionable world is now, entirely by externals. ”

“ Human anatomy then deals with the form and structure of the human body, and describes how the different parts and organs are arranged, as revealed by observation, by dissection, and by the microscope. ”

“ The practically useful, but eminently unscientific, doctrine, that there can be alteration of function without alteration of structure, has effaced some of the most essential distinctions between anatomy and physiology, and especially between morbid anatomy and morbid physiology. ”

“ As the student of anatomy can build up the entire system from the examination of a single bone, so may a person by a careful study of an important member of the body such as the hand, apart from anything superstitious or even mystical, build up the entire action of the system and trace every effect back to its cause. ”

“ Minute anatomy has not yet attained a degree of perfection competent to settle a point of such subtility.”
Dr. C. afterward goes on to prove that no single nerve, or organ, can perform two distinct functions, but that each is capable of one mode of action, and no more; that between a nerve, a muscle, and a gland, the only difference known to exist, is that of organization; and that if they are organized alike, and endowed with life, their properties will be similar, and they will act in the same way. ”

“ If we take for comparison those that assimilate to our general form, anatomy shows us that our organs are the same as theirs; we find in them muscle for muscle, nerve for nerve, that is found in man himself. Physiology, in turn, has demonstrated that, in the body of man, the organs, the muscles, the nerves, have the same animal functions. ”

“ To know the anatomy of the human body, with even an approximation to thoroughness, is the work of a life; but as much as is needed for a sound comprehension of elementary physiological truths, may be learned in a week. ”

“ As regards anatomy, I am pretty well prepared: and I have, not without some labour, gained a tolerable knowledge of the human frame; for the continual examination of the ancient statues is continually stimulating one to a more perfect understanding of it. In our medico-chirurgical anatomy, little more is in view than an acquaintance with the several parts; and, for this purpose, the sorriest picture of the muscles may serve very well: but in Rome the most exquisite parts would not even be noticed, unless as helping to make a noble and beautiful form. ”

“ We must keep in mind that the study of anatomy embraces not merely the bony framework of animals, but also the muscles, the nervous system, the sense organs, and all the other structures of both animals and plants. In the rise of [Pg 142] comparative anatomy there gradually emerged naturalists who compared the structure of the higher animals with that of the simpler ones. These comparisons brought out so many resemblances and so many remarkable facts that anatomy, which seems at first a dry subject, became endued with great interest. ”

“ Therapeutic Sarcognomy, a science often demonstrated and endorsed by able physicians, gives the anatomy not of the physical structure, but of the vital forces of the body and soul as located in every portion of the constitution—a science vastly more important than physical anatomy, as the anatomy of life is more important than the anatomy of death. ”

“ There have not been wanting many who, inexperienced and ignorant of anatomy, and making no appeal to the senses in their opposition, have, on the contrary, met it with empty assertions, and mere suppositions, with assertions derived from the lessons of teachers and captious cavillings ”

“ EVER since the study of human anatomy has attracted any attention, variations in the arrangement of the different structures of the body have been noticed. For many centuries, the signification of these variations was not understood ”

“ Anatomy describes muscular action as produced by mind in one instance and not another. This fallacious argument besets every material theorem, one statement contradicting another, yea, “a kingdom divided against itself that is brought to desolation.” ”

“ Medicine was the foster-mother of chemistry, because it has to do with the preparation of drugs and the detection of poisons; of botany, because it enabled the physician to recognize medicinal herbs; of comparative anatomy and physiology, because the man who studied human anatomy and physiology for purely medical purposes was led to extend his studies to the rest of the animal world. ”

“ Let us take anatomy for an example: must not the first man who surmounted natural repugnance, and ventured to open a human body, suppose that by dissecting and examining all its parts, he should obtain a knowledge of its structure, mechanism and functions? ”

“ Fortunately comparative anatomy, when thoroughly understood, enables us to surmount all these difficulties, as a careful application of its principles instructs us in the correspondences and dissimilarities of the forms of organized bodies of different kinds, by which each may be rigorously ascertained from almost every fragment of its various parts and organs. ”

“ Moreover, the steps of this advance have been very many and diverse; the cultivators of anatomy have in all ages been numerous and laborious; the subject is one of vast extent and complexity; almost every generation had added something to the current knowledge of its details; and the general speculations of physiologists have been subtle, bold, and learned. ”

“ Careful anatomical study is the sure and indispensable preparation for that next advanced range of clinical observation, where pathology and therapeutics bring us into the direct study of the sick.
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The more thoroughly the human organization is investigated, the more wonderful will the unapproachable mechanism for the use of human life be seen to be. We shall never regret any amount of time and care spent in acquiring the most intimate knowledge of human anatomy. ”

“ Both
anatomy and theology define man as both physical and
mental, and place mind at the mercy of matter for every
148:15 function, formation, and manifestation. Anatomy takes
up man at all points materially. It loses Spirit, drops the
true tone, and accepts the discord. ”

“ In order to show more clearly how each part is subservient to these ends, I shall give a short account of the structure of the human body, but I must premise, that the nature of this course will prevent my entering minutely into anatomical detail. All that can be done is, to give such a general outline of anatomy and physiology, as will furnish individuals with so much knowledge of themselves, as may enable them to guard against habitual sickness. ”

“ To enforce the right opinion by remarks drawn from far and near, and to illustrate man by the structure of animals according to the Socratic rule [given by Aristotle and affixed as an extract to the title-page of the lectures [3] ] . To bring in points beyond mere anatomy in relation to the causes of diseases, and the general study of nature with the object of correcting mistakes and of elucidating the use and actions of parts for the use of anatomy to the physician is to explain what should be done in disease. ”

“ Human anatomy is either general, specific, topographical or surgical. These terms do not imply the dissection and anatomy of generals, specialists, topographers and surgeons, as they might seem to imply, but really mean something else. ”

“ The science which treats of the structure of organic bodies; anatomical structure or organization. Let the muscles be well inserted and bound together, according to the knowledge of them which is given us by anatomy. Dryden.
Note: "Animal anatomy" is sometimes called zomy; "vegetable anatomy," phytotomy; "human anatomy," anthropotomy. Comparative anatomy compares the structure of different kinds and classes of animals.
3. A treatise or book on anatomy.
4. The act of dividing anything, corporeal or intellectual, for the purpose of examining its parts; analysis; as, the anatomy of a discourse. ”

“ The human hand has a language of its own. While the tongue demonstrates the thought through the word, the hand realizes and renders visible the thought through the work. This organ, therefore, by whose fitness of form the mind declares its own entity in nature, by the invention and creation of the thing, which is, as it were, the mind’s autograph, claims a high interest in surgical anatomy ”

“ Before this anatomy had been learned mainly from animals, and as human beings differ most widely from animals by their brain, naturally, as soon as the opportunity presented itself, anatomists gave themselves to thorough work on this structure where so many discoveries were waiting to be made. ”

“ The necessity of knowing, from an artistic point of view, the structure of the human body makes clear the importance we attach, from the same point of view, to the study of the anatomy of animals—that is, the study of comparative anatomy. ”

“ The finest and most intricate parts of the human frame are delineated and traced with a distinctness and exactitude hardly to be conceived, and the slightest ramifications of the nerves and vessels have been followed with a clearness and accuracy rarely seen in the most exact preparations of the best cabinets of anatomy. ”