204 Medicine, 



ing the operations of nature, the numberless falla- 

 cies which attend the endeavour to discriminate 

 truth from falsehood, and the smallness of the 

 stock of genuine and undisputed facts which all 

 the observation and wisdom of ages have been 

 able hitherto to collect. 



There is no species of knowledge, relating to af- 

 fairs merely human, which more indispensably 

 requires steadiness of principles and harmony of 

 opinion than that now under consideration . There 

 is none in which speculation and action are more 

 intimately related, where error is of more imme- 

 diate and fatal consequence, or where a fluctuation 

 of the mind between opposite decisions is attended 

 with more embarrassment and distress. Yet medi- 

 cine abounds with schisms and controversies; and 

 in the present imperfect state of knowledge, to 

 hold doctrines and adopt practices beset with the 

 fewest errors constitutes the highest attainment 

 within the reach of the human mind, 



ANATOMY. 



This subject was pursued with so much dili- 

 gence soon after the restoration of learning in the 

 fifteenth and through the two succeeding centu- 

 ries, as to leave less than might be expected for 

 the investigation of modern anatomists. Leonardo 

 DA Vinci made great progress in anatomical 

 studies towards the close of the fifteenth century.'" 

 In the sixteenth century flourished the immortal 

 Vesalius, the founder of rational and systematic 

 anatomy, whose works afford surprising proofs of 



ft This was the first man who introduced the practice of making anata* 

 wiical drawings. These drawings, preserved in a British collection, excite 

 ^istonishment at the depth and accuracy of his knowledge. 



