360 ON THE PROGRESS OF ANATOMY. 



numerous followers. A host of writers on surgical anatomy 

 have since appeared, most of them belonging to the French 

 school. Their writings are characterised by the clear sys- 

 tematic arrangement and luminous description which are pecu- 

 liar to the genius of the French people and language. But 

 this method and completeness is at once their peculiarity and 

 their fault, they induce fatigue without proportional in- 

 struction, and I appeal to the experience of those of you who 

 have already acquired some knowledge of this department, 

 whether you have derived the same useful information from 

 the laboured works of Velpeau and Blandin, as from the plain 

 common sense and discriminating accuracy of Allan Burns. 



Since the rise of surgical anatomy a number of manuals 

 have appeared, and been extensively used, being arranged not 

 systematically, but in the order of dissection. To them your 

 attention will be more particularly directed in the course of 

 demonstration and in the dissecting room. 



The department of our science which has been most 

 extensively developed in the period now under consideration, 

 is comparative anatomy — and with this the name of Cuvier 

 will at once suggest itself to you. Much, however, as I revere 

 that name, and fully as I appreciate the extent of the dis- 

 coveries in comparative anatomy with which it is associated, 

 I am bound to add the expression of my belief to that of most 

 competent judges, that the French anatomist must yield to 

 John Hunter, not only the priority of discovery, but the 

 greater part of what was discovered ; and even the very 

 arrangement of the system. But it is not so much for these 

 reasons that I would consider Mr. Hunter as in advance of 

 Cuvier. The discoveries of Cuvier in fossil anatomy have 

 given an impulse to the fashionable science of geology, and a 

 consequent brilliancy to his reputation, incommensurate with 

 the absolute difficulty of the researches. That Mr. Hunter 

 was fully alive to the importance, and capable of entering into 



