382 HUMAN ANATOMY 



the human body by classifying the subjects according to race, and 

 thereby bringing into relief the slight anatomical differences that 

 exist between the well-marked races of Europe -and the races of 

 other parts of the world. The history of anatomical differences 

 due to sex lacks several chapters, and it is possible also to show 

 the modifications of structure which come from the lifelong pursuit 

 of certain handicrafts which call for peculiar positions of the body or 

 for the unusual exercise of certain muscles; as, for example, the 

 anatomy of a shoemaker. 1 



Such results as the one last mentioned have a direct bearing on 

 the modifications of the human form which may be introduced 

 by peculiarities of daily life and work, and bring anatomy into 

 connection with the problems of sociology; while, on the other 

 hand, both lines of work are contributory to the broader questions 

 of zoological relationship and susceptibility to modification. 



Yet when we have gained all the information which the scalpel 

 can give, there still remains the whole field of finer anatomy, the 

 extent of which it is so difficult to appreciate. 



While recognizing that the human body may be regarded as a 

 composite, formed by the fitting together of the series of systems, 

 and while, in some instances, we have a more or less accurate 

 notion of the way such a system appears, as, for instance, in the 

 case of the skeleton, yet a much better understanding of the 

 relation of the soft parts would follow an attempt to extend this 

 method of presentation, and to construct phantoms of the body 

 in the terms of its several systems in some way which would show 

 us the system in question as an opaque structure in a body other- 

 wise transparent. This is, of course, the final aim of the various 

 corrosion methods, or those which depend on injection or differ- 

 ential coloration of structures which may be viewed in three di- 

 mensions. 



When the vascular, lymphatic, nervous, and glandular systems 

 can be thus exhibited for the entire body, or for the larger divis- 

 ions of it, it will be possible to see the human form transparently, 

 and to see it whole; a feat difficult to accomplish, but worthy of 

 earnest endeavor. The development of such phantoms should 

 serve to make more impressive the familiar fact that in many or- 

 gans and systems the total structure is built up by a more or less 

 simple repetition of unit complexes, as. for example, the liver by 

 the hepatic lobule, the bones by Haversian systems, and the spinal 

 cord by the neural segments. 



Tf we pass now from the consideration of the systems of tissues 

 to that of their structural elements, we enter the domain of his- 



1 Lane, W. A., Journal of Anatomy and Physiology, vols. xxi and xxn, 1887 and 

 1888. 



