Comparative anatomy

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Of the successors of Cuvier, we would designate Meckel, Owen, Gegenbaur, and Cope as the greatest.
Comparative anatomy is a very rich subject, and when elucidated by embryology, is one of the firm foundations of biology. If we regard anatomy as a science of statics, we recognize that it should be united with physiology, which represents the dynamical side of life. Comparative anatomy and comparative physiology should go hand in hand in the attempt to interpret living forms. Advances in these two subjects embrace nearly all our knowledge of living organisms. ”

“ Anatomical studies, therefore, began with the more complex animals instead of the simpler ones, and, later, when comparative anatomy began to be studied, this led to many misunderstandings; since the structure of man became the type to which all others were referred, while, on account of his derivation, his structure presents the greatest modification of the vertebrate type. ”

“ Research in Comparative Anatomy develops the fact that the differences in power of complex action possessed by different organisms are entirely measurable by differences in the structure and complexity of their nerve mechanisms. ”

“ E.D. Cope.—In America the greatest comparative anatomist was E.D. Cope (1840-1897) , a man of the highest order of attainment, who dealt with the comparative anatomy not only of living forms, but of fossil life, and made contributions of a permanent character to this great science; a man whose title to distinction in the field of comparative anatomy will become clearer to later students with the passage of time. For Cope's portrait see p. ”

“ Between comparative anatomy and embryology there exists a close connection, for the one throws light on the other. "While in some cases the same organ shows only slight modifications in its development from its early beginnings to its perfect state, in other cases the organ is subjected to manifold modifications before it reaches its definitive form ”

“ Exclusive regard for their physiological functions would place morphologically related organs in different categories. From this it follows that in comparative anatomy we should never in the first place consider the function of an organ. The physiological value comes only in the second place into consideration, when we have to reconstruct the relations to the organism as a whole of the modification which an organ has undergone as compared with another state of it. In this way comparative anatomy shows us how to arrange organs in series ”

“ To such precision has the science of comparative anatomy arrived, that a mere scale or tooth is often enough to indicate the nature and functions of the individual to which it belonged, and to establish the existence in former times of a particular class or order of animals. ”

“ To deal here with all the lines of new research which have benefited by the comparative method in recent years would trench unnecessarily upon the scope of the contents of the work, where sufficient is already written. One illustration must suffice of a science in which the new treatment affects both the substance and the form of the articles in the Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Comparative Anatomy, as a branch of Zoology, can no longer be scientifically separated from Human Anatomy. ”

“ The branch of the comparative anatomy which seeks to trace the unities of plan which are exhibited in diverse organisms, and which discovers, as far as may be, the principles which govern the growth and development of organized bodies, and which finds functional analogies and structural homologies, is denominated philosophical or transcendental anatomy. ”

“ Manual of Human Anatomy, equally distinguished by a thorough empirical acquaintance with their immense multitudes of facts, and by a comprehensive control of his material, and its philosophic appreciation in the evolutionary sense. His recent Comparative Anatomy of the Vertebrata establishes the solid foundation on which our conviction of the vertebral character of man in every aspect is chiefly based. ”

“ Moreover, there are several facts of comparative anatomy which have long been the joy of all zoölogists and have rewarded the toilsome labors of detailed investigations by a delightful view over the whole realm of the organic world, but which find a scientific explanation only in the descent theory. They are the homology of the organs, and to a certain degree also the so-called rudimentary organs. ”

“ The physiologist of the present day is too little of a comparative anatomist, and far too closely enveloped in the absurd jargon of the anthropotomist, ever to hope to reveal any great truth for science, and dispel the mists which still hang over the phenomena of the nervous system. ”

“ An eminent professor has recently expressed these views in a concise form, saying that the embryology of the most perfect being is a comparative transitory anatomy, and that the anatomic table of the whole animal kingdom is a fixed and permanent representation of the movable aspect of human organogeny. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We all know that the embryological explanation of the anatomical disposition in the adult is a real and clarifying explanation. Certainly no teacher of anatomy to-day, competent to his work, will undertake to teach the structure of the brain, of the urogenital system or of the heart, except on an embryological basis. ”

“ But, after all, it is not of the essence of the vertebrate type to have the trunk and the abdomen attached at definite and invariable distances along the vertebral column—that is a notion surviving from the anatomy which made man its type. ”

“ Anatomy studies the organism in space. Physiology studies it also in time. After the study of form and composition follows close that of action, and this leads us along back to the first moment of the germ, and forward to the resolution of the living frame into its lifeless elements. In this way Anatomy, or rather that branch of it which we call Histology, has become inseparably blended with the study of function. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Though the male and female bodies, in all their regions, are anatomically homologous or similar at basis, yet the constituent and corresponding organs of each are gently diversified by the plus or minus condition, the more or the less, which the development of certain organs exhibits ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the sixteenth century the study of human anatomy may be said to have been fairly established by the zeal and labors of Vesalius, and in this and the succeeding centuries we meet with the names of many physicians whose anatomical and physiological investigations tended either directly or indirectly to advance the science of medicine. ”