Medicine. 215 



To the above ma}^ be added a variety of valuable 

 publications by Professor Scarpa, of Pavia, w^ho 

 has v^ell supported the reputation of the former 

 Italian schools of anatomy. 



In particular departments of anatomy much has 

 been done w^ithin the century, to enrich the science, 

 which ought not to be passed v^ithout special no- 

 tice. 



The gravid uterus is a subject which has at- 

 tracted much attention, and received considerable 

 improvement, within this period. The works of 

 Albinus, Roederer, and Jenty, have greatly en- 

 larged the knowledge of former anatomists on this 

 point. But Dr. Hunter's publication on the gra- 

 vid uterus, to which he had devoted a long tune 

 and uncommon pains, far excelled every preceding 

 work. Meckel, and the second Monro, have 

 treated of the nerves to considerable extent ; Weit- 

 brecht and Leber on the joints and fresJi bones ; 

 SoEMERRTNG and Monro on the brain;"^ Porter- 

 field, Haller, Ztnn, and Wrisberg on th^ei/e; 

 CoTUNNius, Meckel, jun. Camper, Scarpa, and 

 many others, on the ear. Walter is celebrated for 

 his description of the veins of the head and neck, as 

 well as very elegant plates of the nerves of the thorax 

 and abdomen. Trew has ably treated of the dif 



q Mr. SoEMERRiNG thinks It probable that the zoul is seated in the 

 fluid of the ventricles of the brain. He infers this from the fact of the 

 nerves of vision, hearing, taste and smell being all at their origin in con- 

 tact with and exposed to the action of the fluid in the ventricles; from the 

 same taking place with regard to the nerves of touch, originating from the 

 fifth pair, the glosso-pharyngeal, those belonging to the organ of voice and 

 the motions of the eyes; from the impossibility of finding a solid part of the 

 brain into which the terminations of all the nerves can be traced ; from the 

 nerves of the finest senses, viz. hearing and seeing being most extensively 

 expanded and most directly in contact with this fluid; from the preter- 

 natural increase of this fluid in the ventricles of ricketty children, which 

 perhaps may be the cause of their uncommon acuteness of mind; and, 

 finally, from the fact, that no animal possesses so capacious and so perfectly 

 organized ventricles as man, they being in the other mammalia much 

 emaller than in man, still less in birds, leait of all ill fijlie*, and abscbtclf 

 fv»nting in insects. 



