CHAPTER II. 



OUR BODILY FRAME. 



Fundamental importance of anatomy. Human anatomy. Hip- 

 pocrates, Aristotle, Galen, Vesalius. Comparative anatomy. 

 Georges Cuvier. Johannes Muller. Carl Gegenbauer. Histology. 

 The cellular theory. Schleiden and Schwann. Kolliker. Virchow. 

 Man a vertebrate — a tetrapod — a mammal — a placental — a 

 primate. Prosimise and simies. The catarrhinse. Papiomorphic 

 and anthropomorphic apes. Essential likeness of man and the 

 ape in corporal structure. 



All biological research, all investigation into the 

 forms and vital activities of organisms, must first 

 deal with the visible body, in which the morphological 

 and physiological phenomena are observed. This 

 fundamental rule holds good for man just as much as 

 for all other living things. Moreover, the inquiry 

 must not confine itself to mere observation of the 

 outer form ; it must penetrate to the interior, and 

 study both the general plan and the minute details of 

 the structure. The science which pursues this funda- 

 mental investigation in the broadest sense is anatomy. 

 The first stimulus to an inquiry into the human 

 frame arose, naturally, in medicine. As it was usually 

 practised by the priests in the older civilisations, we 

 may assume that these highest representatives of the 

 education of the time had already acquired a certain 

 amount of anatomical knowledge two thousand years 

 before Christ, or even earlier. We do not, however, 



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