PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION. 



Ix this edition the plan of the work has been so far altered that the portion 

 on General Anatomy, which was previously scattered throughout the book, 

 has been collected into an Introductory Chapter, and re-written, so as to fur- 

 nish the Student with a very succinct, but it is hoped sufficient, introduction 

 to the study of Microscopic Anatomy; and to this has been added a short 

 description of the chief processes of the development of the ovum, and of the 

 structures characteristic of the foetal state : a subject which, though undeni- 

 ably an integral portion of Human Descriptive Anatomy, was passed over in 

 previous editions. 



This Introduction is inserted in deference to the opinions of persons very 

 competent to judge, and who believe that some such addition is necessary to 

 the completion of Gray's "Anatomy." It is not intended, however, to super- 

 sede or to trench upon the Treatises on Physiology, nor to go minutely into 

 the more recondite and more dubious parts of microscopic research. Nor, 

 again, is it intended to give any account in this work of vital phenomena. 

 Such phenomena are purely within the domain of the physiologist. Conse- 

 quently all the ingenious and beautiful researches by which modern micro- 

 scopists (as Strieker, Von Recklingshausen, Beale, and others) have attempted 

 to investigate the living tissues, lie beyond the scope of such a treatise as this. 

 The humble aim of the following pages is to provide the Student in the 

 smallest compass, and in the simplest language with a plain account of things 

 for the most part universally admitted, and which, with moderate pains, he 

 can succeed in demonstrating for himself. In order to make such verbal 

 descriptions intelligible, figures are necessary : but it appeared useless to 

 manufacture new drawings of things which are quite faithfully represented by 

 authors who are in everybody's hands ; and therefore all the illustrations to 



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