VI PREFACE. 



"Who understands this ? What persons except 

 medical men, as I said before, ever study their 

 bodies ? Is it not strange that knowledge of 

 such vast importance should have been so long 

 overlooked, and practically disregarded ? 



There are reasons, however, for all this 

 neglect. Many connect with the thoughts of 

 studying the human frame, the idea of skeletons, 

 dead bodies, knives, dissections, disinterments, 

 and violent deaths. No wonder the mind should 

 revolt at so horrible a picture ! No wonder that 

 Anatomy and Physiology for these are the 

 hard names given to the study of the body and 

 the laws of the body should be neglected and 

 despised, if these things are inseparable from it ! 



But they are not so. Both anatomy and 

 physiology may be studied with advantage, with- 

 out any connection with either. Much may be 

 learned with the aid of nothing but a book and 

 a few good engravings ; and in fact without 

 either of these. The body itself may be studied ; 

 that is always at hand. And if dissections are 

 even made, portions of birds or quadrupeds may 

 be obtained, which will partly answer the pur- 

 pose. The heart, for example, of most of the 

 common domestic animals, nearly resembles the 

 heart of man, and would answer every purpose. 

 All good citizens disapprove of every form of 



