IN MEDICAL SCIENCE. 21 



to expect in the habits of a mucous and of a serous 

 membrane, as what mineral substances to look for in 

 the chalk or the coal measures. You have only to 

 read Cullen's description of inflammation of the lungs 

 or of the bowels, and compare it with such as you may 

 find in Laennec or Watson, to see the immense gain 

 which diagnosis and prognosis ha^e derived from gen- 

 eral anatomy. 



The second new method of studying the human 

 structure, beginning with the labors of Scarpa, Burns, 

 and CoUes, grew up principally during the first third 

 of this century. It does not deal with organs, as 

 did the earlier anatomists, nor with tissues, after the 

 manner of Bichat. It maps the whole surface of the 

 body into an arbitrary number of regions, and studies 

 each region successively from the surface to the bone, 

 or beneath it. This hardly deserves the name of a sci- 

 ence, although Velpeau has dignified it with that title, 

 but it furnishes an admirable practical way for the sur- 

 geon who has to operate on a particular region of the 

 body to study that region. If we are buying a farm, 

 we are not content with the State map or a geological 

 chart including the estate in question. We demand 

 an exact survey of that particular property, so that we 

 may know what we are dealing with. This is just 

 what regional, or, as it is sometimes called, surgical 

 anatomy, does for the surgeon with reference to the 

 part on which his skill is to be exercised. It enables 

 him to see with the mind's eye through the opaque tis- 



