INTRODUCTION 



THE anatomical laboratory has the longest history of all the 

 medical laboratories. The student has the experience of hun- 

 dreds of years to draw upon. The best methods of isolating 

 the various structures have been worked out and certain rules 

 for dissection have been formulated; the student will do well 

 to familiarize himself with these as early in his course as pos- 

 sible. 



Careful, practical work in the dissection-room is the only 

 means the medical student has of obtaining an independent view 

 of the gross structures of which the human body is composed. 

 Text-books, atlases, demonstrations, and lectures are useful aids, 

 helpful in exciting interest, and favorable to the acquisition of 

 powers of description and illustration; but the main part of 

 the work in anatomy should consist of the student's personal 

 observation. He should learn to see what comes under his eye. 

 He should try by his own independent activity to see all that is 

 there, for the student who learns to see only what he is told to 

 see or what is pointed out to him will be spoiled for the study 

 and practice of medicine. 



Many students in the past have entered the dissecting-room 

 with an utter lack of independent power of observation, of ex- 

 amination, and of description, and yet these three qualities are 

 absolutely necessary for the man who is to engage successfully 

 in the practice of medicine. While it is to be hoped that the 

 advance in the requirements for admission to professional 

 schools, leading as it does to observational work in physics, 

 chemistry, and biology preliminary to the work of the medical 

 course, will bring the students to our laboratories of anatomy 

 better prepared than hitherto for the independent observation 

 of anatomical structures, there can still be but little doubt that 

 many students will learn how really to study and observe first 

 in the dissecting-room. How important it is that the habits 

 formed at this early period of the professional course should 

 be such as will be of value to the student later, such as he would 

 desire to have throughout his professional career ! If he have 

 learned to be exact and steady, systematic and thorough, cleanly 

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