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. We best
recognise the condition of a dislocated joint after we have become well
acquainted with the contour of its normal state; all abnormal conditions
are best understood by a knowledge of what we know to be normal
character. Every anatomist is a comparer, in a greater or lesser degree;
and he is the greatest anatomist who compares the most generally.

Impressed with this belief, I have laid particular emphasis on imitating
the character of the normal form of the human figure, taken as a whole;
that of its several regions as parts of this whole, and that of the
various organs (contained within those regions) as its integrals or
elements. And in order to present this subject of relative anatomy in
more vivid reality to the understanding of the student, I have chosen
the medium of illustrating by figure rather than by that of written
language, which latter, taken alone, is almost impotent in a study of
this nature.

It is wholly impossible for anyone to describe form in words without the
aid of figures. Even the mathematical strength of Euclid would avail
nothing, if shorn of his diagrams. The professorial robe is impotent
without its diagrams. Anatomy being a science existing by demonstration,
(for as much as form in its actuality is the language of nature,) must
be discoursed of by the instrumentality of figure.

An anatomical illustration enters the understanding straight-forward in
a direct passage, and is almost independent of the aid of written
language. A picture of form is a proposition which solves itself. It is
an axiom encompassed in a frame-work of self-evident truth. The best
substitute for Nature herself, upon which to teach the knowledge of her,
is an exact representation of her form.

Every surgical anatomist will (if he examine himself) perceive that,
previously to undertaking the performance of an operation upon the
living body, he stands reassured and self-reliant in that degree in
which he is capable of conjuring up before his mental vision a distinct
picture of his subject. Mr. Liston could draw the same anatomical
picture mentally which Sir Charles Bell's handicraft could draw in
reality of form and figure. Scarpa was his own draughtsman.

If there may be any novelty now-a-days possible to be recognised upon
the out-trodde