ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 75 



There are three points of view, in which comparative 

 anatomy has an important bearing on human physiology. 



In the infancy of science, pliysiology, such as it was, 

 owed its origin to zootomy, which was practised by physi- 

 cians and naturalists eighteen centuries before human dis- 

 sections began. The Anatomia Partiiim Corporis Humani 

 of MoNDiNi, written in the beginning of the fourteenth 

 century, was the first compendium of human anatomy com- 

 posed from actual dissection. It is easy to shew that even 

 the osteology of Galen was not drawn from the human 

 skeleton ; and many parts of the body still bear names de- 

 rived from animals, which names are in some instances not 

 correctly applicable to the human structure ; for example, 

 the epithets right and left as applied to the cavities of the 

 heart. 



Although human anatomy, after its first scientific deve- 

 lopement by Berengar of Carpi, was so quickly brought 

 to a high pitch of perfection by the great triumvirate, Ve- 

 sALius, Fallopius, and Eustachius, yet the most impor- 

 tant discoveries, those of greatest weight in physiology 

 considered as the basis of medicine, were made in animals. 

 No period has been so fruitful in these discoveries, nor so 

 distinguished in the literary history of our science, as the 

 seventeenth century, in which the anatomy of brutes was 

 most zealously cultivated, and most of the great anatomical 

 facts were found out, which, by unveiling the hidden springs 

 and movements of the animal machine, have furnished the 

 principles, on which rational pathology and practical medi- 

 cine have been established. 



These comparative researches render the most important 

 service by affording a criterion in doubtful cases for deter- 

 mining the uses of parts ; which, as the main object of this 

 fundamental medical science, has been well chosen by 

 Galen for the title of his classical work on physiology. 

 Hence Haller observes that the situation, figure, and size 

 of parts ought to be learned from man 5 their uses and 

 motions must be drawn from animals. 



