ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 27 



In cultivating, and especially in teaching, medical 

 science, the different branches of which it is com- 

 posed are habitually too much dissevered from each 

 other, and from the practical consequences to which 

 they lead. The anatomist teaches structure, and 

 structure only, and refers to the physiologist for an 

 account of the uses to which it is subservient. The 

 physiologist, on the other hand, expounds functions, 

 but scarcely touches upon the instruments by which 

 they are executed. The consequence is, that the 

 student often becomes disgusted with what he con- 

 siders the dry details of anatomical structure, when 

 perhaps nothing would interest him more deeply 

 were the purposes which they fulfil in the animal 

 economy taught to him at the same time. Many, 

 in like manner, fail to take any pleasure in the study 

 of physiology, who would be truly delighted to hear 

 the truths of which it treats expounded more gene- 

 rally in connexion with peculiarities of structure, 

 and with more frequent reference to their practical 

 applications. The anatomist and physiologist err, 

 in short, in limiting themselves too exclusively to 

 the objects of their respective departments, and 

 devoting too little attention to the relations which 

 these bear to each other and to the great unit, the 

 living being, of which they form a part. 



The result of this system is, that the young prac- 

 titioner is educated without having made himself 

 sufficiently familiar with the conditions on which 

 the healthy action of the animal economy depends, 

 or having even rightly appreciated the importance 

 of such knowledge : and that, consequently, in com- 

 mon with his patient, he sometimes unwittingly 

 allows the operation of morbid causes to go on 

 without interference, where, by a timely warning on 

 his part, serious illness might have been averted ; 

 or unconsciously permits the gradual ripening of 

 hereditary tendencies into active disease, which 

 rational precautions, early resorted to, might have 



