Januaet 25, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



123 



layed the revival of sound medical educa- 

 tion in this country for a number of years. 

 However, the presence of Jeffrys Wyman 

 in the Hersey chair of anatomy was of the 

 greatest significance in founding the Amer- 

 ican school of zoology. Wyman graduated 

 from Harvard Medical School in 1837, and 

 after having been Warren's demonstrator 

 of anatomy, succeeded him in 1847. Dur- 

 ing the following quarter of a century he 

 made numerous important discoveries in 

 comparative anatomy and embryology and 

 contributed also to teratology and ethnol- 

 ogy. The loss of the influence of this great 

 philosopher and teacher upon medical stu- 

 dents has been one of the misfortunes that 

 medicine in this country has sustained. 

 But it was in zoology in America that sci- 

 entific anatomy was temporarily preserved 

 and extended rather than in the depart- 

 ments of anatomy in the medical schools. 

 The American anatomists should emulate 

 Jeffrys Wyman and our first president, 

 Joseph Leidy. 



Under the conditions which prevailed it 

 was quite natural that the better work 

 of Europe— the work of anatomists like 

 Blumenbach, Ernst Heinrich Weber, Meck- 

 el, Johannes Miiller, Schwann and Kolliker 

 —barely reached this country, for the little 

 anatomy that was cultivated subserved the 

 surgical art. This arrangement may pos- 

 sibly have been beneficial as a training 

 school for surgeons, but it was so bad for 

 anatomy that as a science and as a pro- 

 fession it gradually fell into disrepute 

 among most of the people. This concep- 

 tion of anatomy as a mere maid-servant 

 of surgery is still entertained by some of 

 our colleagues in other sciences. In nearly 

 all of the medical schools anatomy settled 

 down to a dead level, the so-called 'prac- 

 tical,' and, during the second half of the 

 past century most of the progress made in 

 Europe found its way to America not by 

 way of American anatomists, but through 



our zoologists, pathologists and physiolo- 

 gists. Fortunately, many of the latter 

 have kept their membership in this society, 

 for while this association consists of anat- 

 omists, a perusal of the list of members 

 shows that some are also distinguished as 

 physicians, surgeons, physiologists, pathol- 

 ogists, zoologists, anthropologists or psy- 

 chologists. This I consider to be a fortu- 

 nate circumstance, for it will prove to be a 

 most potent factor in the reorganization 

 and development of anatomy in this coun- 

 try and in its consequent broadening influ- 

 ence upon medical education. However, 

 the Catholicism in our society is not prop- 

 erly appreciated by educated people in 

 America, for we often hear it said that our 

 more prominent members are not anatom- 

 ists, but biologists or something else. Let 

 me illustrate: probably the most typical 

 anatomist of us aU, a man of the widest 

 culture and a profoimd scholar, a scientist 

 known as an anatomist the world over, a 

 member of our executive committee for 

 eight years, a founder of the American 

 Journal of Anatomy and my predecessor 

 in office, has been wrested from our ranks 

 and called a zoologist by a recent writer in 

 his study of American scientists. That a 

 single writer should do this would be of no 

 special importance, were it not that this 

 view of the scope of anatomy is entertameJ 

 by so many Americans of prominence that 

 it interferes very much with the develop- 

 ment of our science as a profession. Those 

 who hold this narrow and perverted view 

 of anatomy can not be familiar with its 

 history, its present status in Europe, nor 

 its recent development in America. It is 

 the duty of the members of this association 

 to correct this erroneous conception of an- 

 atomy by precept and by example. I have 

 full confidence that this can be done with 

 ease. 



That anatomy played so important a role 

 in the development of our school of zoology 



