We know as well what differences to
expect in the habits of a mucous and of a serous membrane, as what
mineral substances to look for in the chalk or the coal measures. You
have only to read Cullen's description of inflammation of the lungs or of
the bowels, and compare it with such as you may find in Laennec or
Watson, to see the immense gain which diagnosis and prognosis have
derived from general anatomy.
The second new method of studying the human structure, beginning with the
labors of Scarpa, Burns, and Colles, grew up principally during the first
third of this century. It does not deal with organs, as did the earlier
anatomists, nor with tissues, after the manner of Bichat. It maps the
whole surface of the body into an arbitrary number of regions, and
studies each region successively from the surface to the bone, or beneath
it. This hardly deserves the name of a science, although Velpeau has
dignified it with that title, but it furnishes an admirable practical way
for the surgeon who has to operate on a particular region of the body to
study that region. If we are buying a farm, we are not content with the
State map or a geological chart including the estate in question. We
demand an exact survey of that particular property, so that we may know
what we are dealing with. This is just what regional, or, as it is
sometimes called, surgical anatomy, does for the surgeon with reference
to the part on which his skill is to be exercised.
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