CLASSIFICATION OF ANIMALS. 5 



knowledge of the organisation of the lower animals with that of man, 

 which ought always to claim the first attention of the medical student, 

 is now universally recognised. A great part, often the best part, of 

 the proofs of the most important physiological doctrines are derived, 

 from Comparative Anatomy. The increasing taste for the natural 

 sciences, and the rapidly diffusing knowledge of zoology and geology, 

 render it scarcely pardonable in a member of a liberal profession 

 to be wholly unversed in them ; and almost discreditable to a 

 medical man to be unable to offer any sound opinion on a fossil coral, 

 shell, or bone which may be submitted to his inspection, or on the 

 other surprising phenomena of organic Nature, as the animal origin of 

 chalk and flint, which geology from time to time educes from the dark 

 recesses of the earth, and makes a common topic of conversation. 



There is no just ground to fear that the time required to gain the 

 requisite elementary knowledge of Comparative Anatomy will detract 

 from that which ought to have been exclusively occupied in the study 

 of human anatomy and surgery ; or that the subsequent pursuit of 

 natural science will interfere with the proper professional duties. 



There is generally a period of leisure during the first years of 

 practice which may be most agreeably and profitably devoted to 

 scientific pursuits ; and the young provincial sui'geon may be assured 

 by the example of Gideon Mantell, that the researches and dis- 

 coveries in paleeontology and geology, which have added so many 

 honourable titles to that name, are quite compatible with the most 

 extensive, active, and successful practice. 



It has been a subject of much consideration with me, having 

 endeavoured to fulfil the obligations to the memory of the Founder 

 of the Museum, by a detailed demonstration of its treasures, how to 

 present the general principles and leading facts of Comparative 

 Anatomy with most profit and utility to my junior auditors ; and I 

 trust that the plan which I propose to adopt for the Courses of this 

 and the following year will enable me to give a view of the science 

 within that space, more elementary and succinct, but not, perhaps, 

 less subservient to the illustration of Physiology than were the pre- 

 ceding lectures given on the system indicated by the arrangement 

 of the Hunterian Preparations. 



It is very true that, by tracing the progressive additions to an organ 

 through the animal series from its simplest to its most complex struc- 

 ture, we learn what part is essential, what auxiliary to its office ; and 

 the successive series of preparations in Hunter's Physiological Col- 

 lection strikingly and beautifully illustrate this connection between 

 Comparative Anatomy and Physiology. But it is by the comparison 

 of the particular grades of complication of one organ with that of 



R 3 



