An Introduction to a Biology 



as if it were part of oneself. The skilled dissector 

 and surgeon soon comes to feel as if the forceps 

 were elongations of his fingers ; and in general his 

 dissecting instruments, whilst he is using them, 

 become in a very real sense living parts of his hands. 

 The word " surgeon " is derived from the Greek 

 cheirourgos, which literally means one who does 

 (delicate) work with his hands. For the sense by 

 which one traces a nerve or a vessel is a blend of 

 the senses of sight and touch. This sensation of 

 touch must be transmitted to the brain through the 

 instrument as well as through the hand and arm. 

 Therefore, though there is a difference between hand 

 and instrument in the faculty of transmitting sensa- 

 tion, the difference is not so great that a hard and 

 fast line can be drawn, in respect of this faculty, 

 between instrument and hand. The hand is merely 

 the haft of the tool, that part of the body into 

 which the instrument (as its name implies) is built. 



3 



" Life, he urged, lies not in bodily organs, but in the power to 

 use them, and in the use that is made of them that is to say, in the 

 work they do." SAMUEL BUTLER, " Erewhon Revisited," p. 128. 



" The difference between the limb and the imple- 

 ment, between the claw of the crab and the forceps 

 of the anatomist, is a perfectly simple one," it may 

 be objected. :c The claw is alive and the forceps 

 are inanimate." The answer to this objection is 

 that the business part of the claw is just as dead 

 as the forceps are ; or, if the reverse phrasing is 

 preferred, is no more alive than the forceps, in use, 

 are. Both are made of inanimate matter ; both 



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