“I think I am not overstating the case when I say that, in the two years (or less than two years) which the medical student devotes to studies other than clinical, 60 or 70 per cent. of his time—in some cases even more—is spent on the study of topographical anatomy. That study may be regarded in two lights—as a discipline, and as practical useful knowledge. The late Dr. Parkes, in a remarkable introductory address which he delivered at University College, London, many years ago, insisted most strongly that its value as a discipline was far higher and more precious than its direct utility; and I imagine that the more one reflects on the matter, the more clearly this will appear. The details of topographical anatomy have this peculiar feature, that, though they can only be learnt with infinite pains and labour, unlike other things hard to learn, they vanish and flee away with the greatest ease. I would confidently appeal to my audience of practical men, how much of the huge mass of minute facts, which in their youth they gathered with so much toil, remained fresh in their minds two years after they passed the portals of the College; and how much now remains to them beyond a general view of the parts of the human frame, and a somewhat more special knowledge of particular regions, their acquaintance with which has been maintained by more or less frequent operations. I would confidently ask them what is the ratio, in terms of money or any other value, which the time spent in those early anatomical struggles—say over the details of the forearm—bears to the amount of that knowledge remaining after twenty, or ten, or even five years of active practice, or to the actual use to which that knowledge has been put.