The word anatomy is derived from two Greek spatters and three polywogs,
which, when translated, signify “up through” and “to cut,” so that anatomy
actually, when translated from the original wappy-jawed Greek, means to
cut up through. That is no doubt the reason why the medical student
proceeds to cut up through the entire course.
[Illustration: STUDYING ANATOMY.]
Anatomy is so called because its best results are obtained from the
cutting or dissecting of organism. For that reason there is a growing
demand in the neighborhood of the medical college for good second-hand
organisms. Parties having well preserved organisms that they are not
actually using, will do well to call at the side door of the medical
college after 10 P.M.
The branch of the comparative anatomy which seeks to trace the unities of
plan which are exhibited in diverse organisms, and which discovers, as far
as may be, the principles which govern the growth and development of
organized bodies, and which finds functional analogies and structural
homologies, is denominated philosophical or transcendental anatomy. (This
statement, though strictly true, is not original with me.)
Careful study of the human organism after death, shows traces of
functional analogies and structural homologies in people who were supposed
to have been in perfect health all their lives Probably many of those we
meet in the daily walks of life, many, too, who wear a smile and outwardly
seem happy, have either one or both of these things. A man may live a
false life and deceive his most intimate friends in the matter of
anatomical analogies or homologies, but he cannot conceal it from the
eagle eye of the medical student. The ambitious medical student makes a
specialty of true inwardness.
The study of the structure of animals is called zootomy. The attempt to
study the anatomical structure of the grizzly bear from the inside has not
been crowned with success. When the anatomizer and the bear have been
thrown together casually, it has generally been a struggle between the two
organisms to see which would make a study of the structure of the other.
Zootomy and moral suasion are not homogeneous, analogous, nor indigenous.
Vegetable anatomy is called phytonomy, sometimes. But it would not be safe
to address a vigorous man by that epithet. We may call a vegetable that,
however, and be safe.
Human anatomy is that branch of anatomy which enters into the description
of the structure and geographical distribution of the elements of a human
being. It also applies to the structure of the microbe that crawls out of
jail every four years just long enough to whip his wife, vote and go back
again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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