PROBLEMS IN HUMAN ANATOMY 389 



and that we might look for them in the human nervous system 

 where we find them in that of the rat. When it is possible to see 

 how the anatomy of the nervous system may be altered during 

 the post-natal growth-period, we shall be prepared to take up the 

 problem of how it may be improved during embryonic arid fetal 

 life, and how the actual number of potential neurones is deter- 

 mined and their relative distribution controlled, and this should lead 

 ultimately to the attempt to breed animals with improved nervous 

 systems in which we shall know the nature of the improvement in 

 considerable detail. 



It may be urged that putting the problems in this way indicates 

 a greater interest in the application to physiology of the anatom- 

 ical results than in the results themselves. But I take it that 

 the interest of a machinist in building a machine is to make the 

 parts for one that will go, and that no less honor is due him for 

 his painstaking care in determining the construction of the dif- 

 ferent parts and their right relations, because at the end of the 

 operation he has devised something capable of doing work. Simi- 

 larly it is possible that a man's interest from day to day shall be 

 absorbed in the technique of anatomical science, and yet, it is 

 nevertheless distinctly advantageous, if his anatomical observations 

 bear on the performances of the living animal, and a final result 

 is obtained which is the synthesis of research in two associated 

 fields. 



In drawing up the preceding outline, no one is more aware than 

 the writer of the fact that problems connected with the nervous 

 system have alone been considered. Without doubt those more 

 interested in the other systems of the human body could duplicate 

 for these the problems which have been suggested in connection 

 with the nervous system, so that the account given above may 

 be taken simply as an illustration of the sort of thing that seems 

 worth doing. In presenting these illustrations it has been my pur- 

 pose to indicate a standpoint from which the anatomical problems 

 can be profitably regarded, and to draw attention to the use of 

 quantitative methods in the study of anatomy, and especially as 

 applied to the body during the period of active growth. 



Yet perhaps the largest of our problems, and certainly one which 

 appeals to all of us, is the ways and means for the solid advance- 

 ment of our science. Alongside of the question of how we shall 

 hand down to successive generations of students the facts already 

 established, lies the still more fundamental problem of the best 

 method of building-up the body of anatomical knowledge. 



It is not my purpose to advocate as a means to this end the sharp 

 separation of teaching from investigation. It is a rare man who 

 can stand the strain of such a division, whether he chooses one or 



