I confine myself here to the announcing of some results obtained by my predecessors; for previous to entering into details of the experiments which I have tried, it remains for me to trace the picture of the means employed down to our period for the preparation and preservation of pieces of normal anatomy, pathological anatomy and natural history. This will form the subject of chapter VII. When I shall have made known the whole of the resources of this other branch for the preservation of animal matters, each one can form an accurate opinion, after a complete knowledge of the facts, of the part which belongs to my labours, and of the place which they ought to occupy in the scale of natural sciences. CHAPTER VII. METHODS OF PREPARING AND PRESERVING SUBJECTS OF ANATOMY, PATHOLOGY, AND NATURAL HISTORY, PREVIOUS TO THE PROCESS OF GANNAL. Among the investigations belonging to the domain of medicine, normal anatomy and pathological anatomy occupy the first rank; they constitute the necessary basis of exact study: all men of genius have experienced this. This conviction has been the source of the persevering efforts of numerous distinguished savans, who reasonably supposed that they would merit the esteem and gratitude of their species, if they could succeed in composing collections of engravings, or artificial models, representing the form, colour, &c., of each of the organs, or if they could discover methods of preparation capable of preserving the organs themselves with all the physical properties which they possessed at the moment of death. It is not necessary to enter into discussions upon the high importance of these different kinds of investigations; for every one comprehends it, and the gravest authorities have pronounced upon this matter. Who does not know the vast importance which our illustrious Cuvier attributed in the progress of the natural sciences, to him who first conceived the idea of preserving objects in alcohol? It is perceptible, indeed, at the first glance, that the most beautiful and valuable of libraries for the physician and naturalist would be a collection of artificial subjects; or still better, of all the organs of the bodies of animals, and of man, skilfully prepared and preserved, without any alteration of the properties which it is important to know. It must be admitted that a collection in which all the organs would be disposed in series, where they would be seen passing by their successive degrees of increment and decrement, offering their differences, individual and sexual, their points of contact and separation in the various classes of the animal kingdom, their anomalies, their pathological affections, their intimate structure, &c., it must be admitted I say, that such a collection would be an inexhaustible source of knowledge; it would acquire additional value by the addition of a series of pieces representing the detailed anatomy of each of the parts involved in surgical operations.