l anatomy, does for the surgeon with
reference to the part on which his skill is to be exercised. It enables
him to see with the mind's eye through the opaque tissues down to the
bone on which they lie, as if the skin were transparent as the cornea,
and the organs it covers translucent as the gelatinous pulp of a medusa.

It is curious that the Japanese should have anticipated Europe in a kind
of rude regional anatomy. I have seen a manikin of Japanese make traced
all over with lines, and points marking their intersection. By this
their doctors are guided in the performance of acupuncture, marking the
safe places to thrust in needles, as we buoy out our ship-channels, and
doubtless indicating to learned eyes the spots where incautious meddling
had led to those little accidents of shipwreck to which patients are
unfortunately liable.

A change of method, then, has given us General and Regional Anatomy.
These, too, have been worked so thoroughly, that, if not exhausted, they
have at least become to a great extent fixed and positive branches of
knowledge. But the first of them, General Anatomy, would never, have
reached this positive condition but for the introduction of that,
instrument which I have mentioned as the second great aid to modern
progress.

This instrument is the achromatic microscope. For the history of the
successive steps by which it became the effective scientific implement
we now possess, I must refer you to the work of Mr. Quekett, to an
excellent article in the "Penny Cyclopaedia," or to that of Sir David
Brewster in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica." It is a most interesting
piece of scientific history, which shows how the problem which Biot in
1821 pronounced insolvable was in the course of a few years practically
solved, with a success equal to that which Dollond had long before
obtained with the telescope. It is enough for our purpose that we
are now in possession of an instrument freed from all confusions and
illusions, which magnifies a thousand diameters,--a million times in
surface,--without serious distortion or discoloration of its object.

A quarter of a century ago, or a little more, an instructor would not
have hesitated to put John Bell's "Anatomy" and Bostock's "Physiology"
into a student's hands, as good authority on their respective subjects.
Let us not be unjust to either of these authors. John Bell is the
liveliest medical writer that I can remember who has written since the
days of