380 HUMAN ANATOMY 



demands that they should still be kept by themselves. Nevertheless, 

 while the anatomical experience of the average medical student 

 should rest on a broad scientific background, he should at the same 

 time have a distinct appreciation of the eminently practical value 

 of the information he is expected to acquire. 



The question at once arises how the monotony of long-continued 

 dissection can be relieved, and the student maintained in a con- 

 dition of sufficient receptivity to make the work really worth while; 

 for the acquisition of vocabularies has never been counted as one 

 of the greater pleasures of life. There are several legitimate devices : 

 in the first place, if it is possible, for the student to have near at 

 hand a microscope which may now and then be used for the examin- 

 ation of the different tissues as they appear in the cadaver. This 

 cross-reference between the gross and microscopic appearance will 

 serve to bring into close connection with one another two classes of 

 facts which are often separated to their disadvantage, and to revive 

 the histological pictures which should be incorporated in gross 

 structures, but which in most cases remain forever apart from them. 

 On the other hand, a search for anomalies or variations serves to 

 give both a reality and purposefulness to the work and to make a 

 student feel that in return for the large amount of time necessarily 

 required for his anatomical training, he is, in some small measure at 

 least, contributing to the science. It is unavoidable, this expenditure 

 of time, and absolutely necessary that the student should do these 

 things with his own hands, in order to obtain the three-dimensional 

 impression of the structure with which he deals. 



In this connection just a word as to the way in which the beginner 

 may be aided in the comprehension of his work. The excellent 

 diagrams and pictures which are now used to illustrate the b st 

 anatomical text-books carry us as far as that means of assistance 

 can probably go. Pedagogical experience points strongly, however, 

 to the superior value of the three-dimensional model, and although 

 such models are more difficult to collect, harder to care for, and 

 require more space and caution in their use, they are so far superior 

 to any other device, except an illustrative dissection itself, that the 

 collection of them in connection with anatomical work becomes a 

 moral obligation. 



If we turn now to the wider uses which may be made of anatomical 

 material as it usually appears in the dissecting-room, we find that 

 a number of directors of laboratories have been utilizing this material 

 for the accumulation of data in such a form that it may be later 

 treated by statistical methods. Thus they have weighed and meas- 

 ured in different ways various parts of the cadaver, and in some 

 cases determined the correlations between the organs or parts 

 examined. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that the results 



