THE HUMAN FRAME. 



VENOUS SYSTEM, ARTERIAL SYSTEM. 



" What a piece of work is man." 



" How noble in reasoi..' How infinite in faculties ! in form and moving how express 

 and admirable! in action how un. an angel! in apprehension how liks a God ! the 

 beauty of the world! the paragon of animals !" 



SkaJcspeare. 



It is the too generally received opinion, that the study of the mechanism 

 of the human body is dry and uninteresting, except to those who are 

 intended for the medical profession ; besides, too, the repulsive circum- 

 stances of the dissecting room are always conjured up in the mind, and 

 the heart revolts from it, as if it were a science of blood and horrors. 

 True it is, that to make a good surgeon, a man must be well acquainted 

 with Anatomy; for one might as well expect a watchmaker to mend our 

 watches or our clocks, without seeing the works, as to hope relief from 

 the skill of the surgeon or the physician, who is ignorant of the complicated 

 structure of the human body, the knowledge of which can only be gained 

 by practical Anatomy. Second only to the beautiful sciences of 

 Astronomy and Geology, is the knowledge of the mechanism of our own 

 species; and one more calculated to give us the most sublime notions of 

 the power and goodness of that Almighty Being, 



" Who formed, directs, and animates the whole," 



cannot be studied. 



Well, indeed, might the great Poet of Nature, in his own beantiful 

 terms of exalted admiration, exclaim, " What a piece of work is man!" 

 Let the most ordinary observer look to the wonderful mechanism of the 

 wrist; how great are the powers of motion, how admirably adapted for 



