If it did not happen
that the study of the human form (confined to itself) had some practical
bearing, such study could not deserve the name of anatomical, while
anatomical means comparative, and whilst comparison implies inductive
reasoning.

However, practical anatomy, such as it is, is concerned with an exact
knowledge of the relationship of organs as they stand in reference to
each other, and to the whole design of which these organs are the
integral parts. The figure, the capacity, and the contents of the
thoracic and abdominal cavities, become a study of not more urgent
concernment to the physician, than are the regions named cervical,
axillary, inguinal, &c., to the surgeon. He who would combine both modes
of a relationary practice, such as that of medicine and surgery, should
be well acquainted with the form and structures characteristic of all
regions of the human body; and it may be doubted whether he who pursues
either mode of practice, wholly exclusive of the other, can do so with
honest purpose and large range of understanding, if he be not equally
well acquainted with the subject matter of both. It is, in fact, more
triflingly fashionable than soundly reasonable, to seek to define the
line of demarcation between the special callings of medicine and
surgery, for it will ever be as vain an endeavour to separate the one
from the other without extinguishing the vitality of both, as it would
be to sunder the trunk from the head, and give to each a separate living
existence. The necessary division of labour is the only reason that can
be advanced in excuse of specialisms; but it will be readily agreed to,
that that practitioner who has first laid within himself the foundation
of a general knowledge of matters relationary to his subject, will
always be found to pursue the speciality according to the light of
reason and science.

Anatomy--the [Greek words], 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. The knowledge of the latter can only
exist by the knowledge of the former, and by the comparison of both.

Comparison may be fairly termed the pioneer to all certain knowledge. It
is a potent instrument--the