Anatomy

Anatomy, the science which deals with the structure of organised bodies. The etymological signification of the word is "a cutting up," and it is by dissection that the relations of different parts to one another are displayed. With the perfection of the microscope a new branch of the subject has been developed, namely, minute anatomy or histology (q.v.). Anatomy may be concerned with the structure of the animals or the vegetable kingdom, though it is usually in connection with the former that the term is applied. In comparative anatomy the different forms of structure met with in the animal kingdom are studied. The information possessed by the ancients with regard to the anatomy of the human body was very meagre, for the very sufficient reason that they practised no systematic dissections. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, seems to have had but little acquaintance with the subject. Aristotle studied the structure of animals, but the human body was apparently never dissected with the view of studying its anatomy until some 300 years before the Christian era. The works of the earliest writers on the subject, Herophilus and Erasistratus, have not however been preserved, and the earliest writings displaying any accurate knowledge of human anatomy, which have come down to posterity, are those of Galen, who lived in the second century after Christ. But little further progress was then made until the sixteenth century, when we meet with ardent students of the subject like Vesalius, Eustachius, and Fallopius, but the credit of the greatest of anatomical discoveries is due to an Englishman, William Harvey, who in 1619 announced his discovery of the circulation of the blood. From this time to the present day a steady advance in knowledge has been made. Willis elucidated the structure of the nervous system, Leeuwenhoeck and Malpighi applied the microscope to the study of minute structures, and Morgagni instituted the science of morbid anatomy. The wonderful industry of the brothers William and John Hunter in the eighteenth century produced great results, and the magnificent collection of anatomical specimens prepared by the latter forms the nucleus of the College of Surgeons' museum. Comparative anatomy has made immense strides during the present century, the great sciences of palaeontology and embryology have been developed in connection with it, and it has thrown much light on questions of physiology and pathology.