Should comparative anatomy be included in a medical course? / by Burt G. Wilder.

  • Burt Green Wilder
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Should comparative anatomy be included in a medical course? / by Burt G. Wilder. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    that he will afterward have little difficult}^ in understanding the other and less essential parts and complications by which the brains of higher forms differ from those of lower. So greatly, indeed, does this comparative-anatomy method facilitate the study of the brain, that I can only account for Prof. Hiixley's non-reference to it in his address, and upon other occasions, b}'^ the fact that to him, more than to any other, is due the credit for placing (17) the labors of em- bryologists and compai-ative anatomists in an intelligible Eng- lish dress. III. To what extent should the study of comparaiive an- atomy he pursued hy the medical student ? Assuming, first, that no one can know too much, and, secondly, that the average student is apt to learn no zoology at all, we should endeavor to define the amount of acquaint- ance which shall be at the same time most useful and most easily acquired. The student should have a good general knowledge of tlie animal kingdom, including the names and leading character- istics, external and internal, of the great primary branches. Neither the Radiates (star-fishes and sea-urchins) nor the Mollusks and Molluscoids (clams, snails, and cuttle-fishes) need long occu]:)y his attention. The same is to be said of the Crustacea (crabs and lobsters) and worms, though certain kinds of worms have a practical importance. He should know the difi'erence between the spiders and the true insects, and what kinds are liable to injure by jaws or sting. But among the vertebrates his knowledge should be much more extensive. He should know that a salamander and a lizard are members of two separate classes, the Amphibia and Reptiles ; and that among the so-called fishes are forms difiering from one another as widely as do turtles from birds. He should know that a bat is not a bird, not only from hav- ing hair in place of feathers, but also because tlie young are nourished with milk; it has two occipital condyles; its brain possesses apons Varolii, & fornix, and a corpus callosum ; and its red corpuscles are round and non-nucleated. But he should also know that in one group of mammals, the camels and llamas, the red corpuscles are oval, as in birds and reptiles.