PREFACE 



To the Fifth Edition, 



THE present state of Anatomy exhibits the propriety 

 of the motto adopted for the title of this work, at its 

 first edition in 1826, for on whatever side our attention 

 may be directed to the nations of the earth, most en- 

 gaged in the cultivation of human sciences and arts, 

 we find that Anatomy is still in progress, and will pro- 

 bably continue so to the end of time. Contributions 

 of the most valuable kind have been made in France, 

 in Germany, in Italy, and in England, not only in re- 

 gard to new observations, but in giving a greater perfec- 

 tion to modes of elucidation by plates models draw- 

 ings and injections. In all of these states, improved 

 systematic treatises have appeared, besides numerous 

 monographs of an instructive kind. In England the 

 science has taken on an aspect signally amended within 

 the last twenty years, so that the disparity once exist- 

 ing between her and the states of the continent, strikes 

 the eye of the inquirer much less than it did at a former 

 period ; in fact several works of a high order of merit 

 have made their appearance. Our own country has 

 manifested the same spirit of advancement in the in- 

 crease of medical schools, and in the multiplication of 

 highly instructed teachers of anatomy, and expert prac- 

 tical anatomists. Though possessing less literary and 

 scientific leisure than any other of the polished and 



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