THE PROBLEMS IN HUMAN ANATOMY 



BY HENRY HERBERT DONALDSON 



[Henry Herbert Donaldson, Professor and head of the Department of Neuro- 

 logy, University of Chicago, b. 1857, Yonkers, New York. A.B. Yale Col- 

 lege, 1879; Ph.D. Johns Hopkins University, 1885; Sheffield Scientific School, 

 1880; College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, 1881. Fellow, Johns 

 Hopkins University, 1881-83; Instructor in Biology, ibid. 1883-84; Associate 

 in Psychology, ibid. 1887-88; Assistant Professor in Neurology, Clark Univer- 

 sity, 1889-92; Professor of Neurology, University of Chicago^ 1892-96; Dean 

 of the Ogden (Graduate) School of Science, ibid. 1892-98. Member of the 

 American Psychological Association; American Neurological Association; 

 American Physiological Society; American Statistical Association; American 

 Society of Naturalists; Association of American Anatomists. Author of Growth 

 of the Brain.} 



FOR the solution of the problems presented to him, the anatomist 

 is by no means limited in his technique to the scalpel or the micro- 

 scope, but justly claims the right to use every aid to research which 

 other departments of science are able to furnish. His position, 

 therefore, in the scientific field is determined by the standpoint 

 which he occupies and from which he regards animal structures, 

 rather than by any special means and methods employed for their 

 study. 



By common consent anatomical material includes not only struc- 

 tures which may be easily dissected and studied with the unaided 

 eye, but also those which tax the best powers of the microscope for 

 their solution. But even within such wide limits the material that 

 ordinarily comes to hand leaves much to be desired, and in elucidat- 

 ing this or that feature in the structures under examination, it is 

 often found necessary to modify the physiological conditions under 

 which these structures have been working, in the hopes that their 

 appearance may be altered thereby, and so be more readily under- 

 stood. 



Taken in a broad way, this is the reason why the data of patho- 

 logy and experimental morphology are so important for the devel- 

 opment of anatomical thought, helping as they do in the solution 

 of the problems connected with the finer structure of the animal 

 body, just as embryology and teratology illuminate the gross mor- 

 phological relations in the adult. 



I am quite aware that in making the foregoing statements I have 

 suggested more modes of investigation than are at present used in 

 connection with man. But the anatomy of the human body in 

 adult life forms in itself so limited a field that no investigator can 

 possibly confine himself to this portion alone, and there is every 

 reason for here treating the subject in the larger way. As we see 



