able
maps. But in that same year was born Werner, who taught a new way of
studying the earth, since become familiar to us all under the name of
Geology.

What geology has done for our knowledge of the earth, has been done for
our knowledge of the body by that method of study to which is given the
name of General Anatomy. It studies, not the organs as such, but the
elements out of which the organs are constructed. It is the geology of
the body, as that is the general anatomy of the earth. The extraordinary
genius of Bichat, to whom more than any other we owe this new method
of study, does not require Mr. Buckle's testimony to impress the
practitioner with the importance of its achievements. I have heard a
very wise physician question whether any important result had accrued
to practical medicine from Harvey's discovery of the circulation. But
Anatomy, Physiology, and Pathology have received a new light from this
novel method of contemplating the living structures, which has had a
vast influence in enabling the practitioner at least to distinguish
and predict the course of disease. We know as well what differences
to expect in the habits of a mucous and of a serous membrane, as what
mineral substances to look for in the chalk or the coal measures. You
have only to read Cullen's description of inflammation of the lungs or
of the bowels, and compare it with such as you may find in Laennec
or Watson, to see the immense gain which diagnosis and prognosis have
derived from general anatomy.

The second new method of studying the human structure, beginning with
the labors of Scarpa, Burns, and Colles, grew up principally during the
first third of this century. It does not deal with organs, as did the
earlier anatomists, nor with tissues, after the manner of Bichat. It
maps the whole surface of the body into an arbitrary number of regions,
and studies each region successively from the surface to the bone, or
beneath it. This hardly deserves the name of a science, although
Velpeau has dignified it with that title, but it furnishes an admirable
practical way for the surgeon who has to operate on a particular region
of the body to study that region. If we are buying a farm, we are not
content with the State map or a geological chart including the estate in
question. We demand an exact survey of that particular property, so that
we may know what we are dealing with. This is just what regional, or,
as it is sometimes called, surgica