November 9, 1893] 



jVA TURE 



29 



is mainly one of adventure ; nevertheless, much of 

 scientific interest is weaved into it, and the boy who 

 reads it without skipping the closely-printed portions will 

 obtain some useful knowledge of the natural history of 

 Borneo. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions ex- 

 pressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake 

 to return, or to correspond 'vith the writers of, rejected 

 viantiscripts intended for this or any other part q/" NATURE. 

 No notice is taken of anonyvioiis communications. '\ 



Human and Comparative Anatomy at Oxford. 



I AM sorry that Prof. Burdon Sanderson should state that a 

 " misstatement " occurs in the article written by me in your 

 issue of October 26, and still more so that whilst makine; such a 

 charge he altogether omits to cite the " misstatement " which 

 he sets out to correct. 



My knowledge both of the University of Oxford and of the 

 teaching of anatomy is, as a mere result of individual history, 

 far more intimate than is that of my colleague, Prof. Sanderson, 

 a fact which may account for some difference in our opinions on 

 these topics. 



When in 1885 the Convocation of the University was asked 

 to sanction the payment of a small salary for a limited period to 

 a lecturer in Human Anatomy — out of University funds already 

 taxed to an inconvenient extent — there existed four ancient 

 foundations in Oxford assigned to the support of teachers of 

 "Anatomy," viz. : the Linacre Professorship of Human and 

 Comparative Anatomy, the Tomlinsian Lectureship of Anatomy, 

 the Aldrichian Professorship of Anatomy, and the Lee's 

 Readership in Anatomy. The small Tomlinsian and Aldrichian 

 endowments had been united in 1S03 by Parliamentary autho- 

 rity, and the salary arising from them was in 1858 assigned to the 

 payment of a demonstrator or demonstrators nominated by the 

 Linacre Professor. There were thus, as teachers of anatomy in 

 the University, the Linacre Professor and his Aldrichian demon- 

 strator, and the Lee's Reader. Whatever may have been the 

 conceptions of the ancient founders as to the nature of that study 

 which they designated ." Anatomia," or the intentions of 

 University Commissioners who gave the title of " Professorship 

 of Human and Comparative Anatomy " to Linacre's revived 

 readership in medicine, or by whatever conditions the result 

 may have been determined, it is certain that in 1885 the holders 

 of the Linacre, Aldrichian, and Lee's teacherships were not 

 giving that "technical training in anthropotomy," that "topo- 

 graphical knowledge of the human body," which forms a part of 

 medical professional education, and is administered in every hos- 

 pital-medical school throughout the country. What these Oxford 

 teachers were doing was to teach anatomy in its broad academi- 

 cal sense. They taught the anatomy of man and of animals as 

 a branch of biological science, and f venture to assert that they 

 taught the anatomy of man and of vertebrate animals with as 

 ample material illustration, and in as complete and detailed a 

 way, as is desirable for the training of University students in- 

 tending to pursue the study of any one of the great branches of 

 biology as a science. What they did not do was to furnish the 

 professional medical student with that special acquaintance with 

 the arrangements of tendons, nerves, and blood-vessels in each 

 little tract of the human body which might be the seat of a 

 surgical operation or a medical exploration. 



Both the teaching and the acquirement of these details is 

 tedious and uninteresting, although necessary for the surgeon. 

 The subject-matter is called "human anatomy," or the 

 "anatomy of man" — as distinguished from "anatomy" in 

 its wider sense, and more especially as distinguished from com- 

 parative anatomy. Human anatomy is not a branch of science ; 

 it is topographical information. In order to render it less un- 

 interesting than it would be (and under some teachers is) when 

 strictly taught, it is customary for the teacher of human anatomy 

 to introduce scraps of the various branches of science which bear 

 upon the significance of animal structure into his text-books and 

 lectures. He thus imports a little physiology and mechanics, a 

 little comparative anatomy or animal morphology and embry- 

 ology into his teaching. The real significance, however, of the 

 facts learnt by the medical student in his course of "human 



NO. 1254, VOL. 49] 



anatomy " is in their application to surgical and medical prac 

 tice, and it is in referring to these applications that the teacher 

 of human anatomy finds the legitimate and most successful leaven, 

 for his dead weight of detail. 



Such being the somewhat repellent character of the pursuit of 

 human anatomy considered apart from the science of morph- 

 ology or comparative anatomy, it is not surprising that the 

 Oxford teachers of "anatomy " in 1885 had all devoted them- 

 selves to the latter study, and left the technical topographical 

 human anatomy uncared for. 



But unattractive and uninteresting as it is, this human anat- 

 omy has to be " gone through "' by the medical student. Oxford 

 had been roused to a sense of her obligations to medical study 

 by a movement, in which I took a somewhat prominent part,, 

 and accordingly when in 1885 it was represented to Convocation 

 that although the University had three teacherships of anatomy 

 and splendid collections illustrating the structure of animals 

 (including man), yet there was no provision for carrying on 

 the instruction in anthropotomy necessary for technical 

 students of medicine, that body generously and deliberately 

 consented to provide a new teachership for the specific purpose 

 of filling this gap in the machinery of the Oxford Medical 

 School. 



I should be very sorry to see any tendency to frustrate the 

 excellent purpose of Convocation, and I feel confident that the 

 renewal of the periodic grant made by that body to pay the 

 salary of a lecturer in human anatomy must depend on the lec- 

 tureship being strictly restrained within its original boundaries. 

 We do not want at Oxford a fifth teachership of anatomy added 

 to the four which have somehow slipped away from "anthro- 

 potomy " into pleasanter and more philosophic regions. The 

 University ought not to be asked for more money with the 

 object of effecting once more such a transformation. But this- 

 will certainly be the case if vague theories about "the academical 

 teaching of human anatomy " are allowed to pass without 

 protest. 



Oxford, November 4. E. Ray Lankester, 



P.S. It is strange that Prof. Sanderson (himself an Edin- 

 burgh man) speaks in his letter of the University professor of 

 Human Anatomy in Edinburgh. There is no such professorship 

 in Edinburgh. Sir William Turner is professor oi Anatomy in 

 Edinburgh, as is the eminent comparative anatomist Gegenbaur 

 in Heidelberg. The separation of human anatomy from com- 

 parative anatomy has not been carried out in these Universities- 

 as it has been deliberately in Oxford. Anthropotomy is taught 

 in the former by demonstrators and assistants acting under the 

 direction of the professor of anatomy. That was the intention 

 of the late University Commissioners with regard to Oxford 

 when they constituted the Linacre Professorship of Human and 

 Comparative Anatomy. Some persons, however, thought it 

 best (I am not now discussing the merits of the arrangement)- 

 that the example of Edinburgh, Heidelberg, and other European 

 Universities, should be departed from in Oxford, and that the 

 functions of the Edinburgh Professor of Anatomy and his staff 

 should in Oxford be divided between the Linacre Professor of 

 Comparative Anatomy and an independent lecturer in Human 

 Anatomy. 



The Monros, Goodsir, Allen Thomson, and other distin- 

 guished Scotch teachers were, like Gegenbaur, KiJlliker, and 

 others in German Universities, professors of "Anatomy," not 

 exclusively of "Human Anatomy." 



The Oxford plan of relieving the titular Professor of Humaiv 

 and Comparative Anatomy of an important but technical 

 branch of his teaching, by the appointment of a lecturer ad hocy 

 has not a precise parallel in other Universities. Moreover, in 

 Germany the subject of microscopic anatomy or histology is 

 very usually undertaken by the Profesfor of Anatomy (e.g. 

 Kolliker, Waldeyer, His), although in Oxford the Professor of 

 Physiology is by statute called upon to give instruction in his- 

 tology. It would probably not meet with unanimous approval 

 were the present Oxford lectureship in Pluman Anatomy — in- 

 imitation of "academical teaching" elsewhere — to be diverted 

 wholly or partly to the subject of histology. — E. R. L, 



" Geology in Nubibus." An Appeal to Dr, Wallace and 

 others. 



In his timely and important letter to you. Dr. Wallace con- 

 gratulated us all on having got rid of a 7t'3/ glacial nightmare by 

 sweeping away the tropical glaciation which has been favoured 



