FEBRUARY 22, 1901. ] 
dissector whose time is limited. With a 
book upon applied anatomy such hurried 
practitioners with a dissected subject before 
them can get ten times more practical ben- 
efit than could possibly be accomplished by 
an individual not an expert. If we were 
given a choice with the average man be- 
tween a course of study upon the cadaver 
with carefully prepared wet specimens and 
the hacked up dissection, we should withont 
hesitation recommend the former. For in- 
telligent comprehension, based on sound 
pedagogical principles, instruct your stu- 
dent, first, as to what to find, and where, 
‘in the wet,’ and then careful, neat, syste- 
matized dissection can not be done too often. 
For the preservation of wet specimens cold 
storage is by far the best, with the ‘ Kai- 
serling’ next. Alcohol hardens them too 
much, solutions of chloral waterlog them, 
formalin preparations favor mold of any 
part from which the fluid is allowed to 
evaporate. 
Dr. Corson, of Savannah, Ga., not being 
able to be present, his paper, ‘ The Value 
of the X-ray in the Study of Normal Anat- 
omy,’ illustrated by photographs of the hu- 
man membral epiphyses at the thirteenth 
year, was read by Dr. Kerr of Cornell Uni- 
versity. The paper contended that the 
X-ray would prove of value, first, in the 
study and demonstration of bone develop- 
ment the growth of the epiphyses, the 
schema of their development and the study 
of joints as joints, with their movements ; 
second, in the demonstration of the internal 
structure of the bones; third, in the study 
and demonstration of the exact spacings 
and positions of the bones in the skeleton 
as a guide to its proper articulation and 
mounting; this would find its widest ap- 
plication in comparative osteology ; fourth, 
in the study and demonstration of the 
arteries on the cadaver, where properly 
injected, they can be skiagraphed in their 
absolute relations to other structures. The 
SCIENCE. 
291 
possibility of this work is wholly due to 
great improvements in apparatus and tech- 
nique, and without doubt we can look for 
even greater improvements in the future 
in X-ray intensity, which will widen its 
present field of usefulness. By the X-ray 
we can really watch the bones grow, and 
we get certain projected plans of bones and 
their exact positions in the skeleton which 
give us new ideas of function as well as of 
form. Thus physiology as well as mor- 
phology will benefit by the discovery of 
Rontgen. 
The Levator Ani Muscle; Dr. Houmss, Phil- 
adelphia. 
The levator ani muscle arises internal to 
the obturator fascia, on a line from the pos- 
terior surface of the crest of the pubes to 
the spine of the ischium; the fibrous leaf-lets, 
projecting proximal and distal to the mus- 
cle, and running downwards and inwards 
parallel to its fibers, being called the recto- 
vesical and anal fascias, which for our pur- 
pose form a sheath for the levator ani, but 
in reality constitute the true supporting 
floor of the pelvic outlet. The levator ani 
muscle in its origin is unique. At its in- 
sertion itis fixed only at the perineal center 
and the coccyx, while at the median raphe 
it is movable throughout, though counter- 
balanced by its fellow of the opposite side ; 
and at the sphincters it is as yielding as the 
soft viscera themselves. None of the fibers 
are attached to the prostate gland, though 
they go behind it to join with the opposite 
muscle constituting a compressor as wellas 
a levator prostate ; so to the sphincters of 
the anus and of the vagina we can trace the 
muscular fibers, but not to the walls of 
the vagina nor of the rectum. ‘The recto- 
vesical fascia which forms the proximal side 
of the muscular sheath blends with the 
fibrous coat of each canal, but the only di- 
rect interlacement of the muscular fibers is 
with the sphincters. 
