JULY 23, 1897. ] 
has been done along these lines that is val- 
uable, but many important problems have 
yet to be investigated, the solution of which 
will help not a little to a more correct un- 
derstanding of the possibilities and limita-- 
tions of human life. 
In the second section of this ideal mu- 
seum the aim will be to interpret and ex- 
plain physical man. Naturally, the subject 
is treated in the broadest and most general 
way, the object being primarily to exhibit 
man as a zoological unit; but there must 
be many sub-sections or divisions. In one 
group we may properly begin with the em- 
bryological history of man. Such an ex- 
hibit is not only possible, but, owing to the 
improved methods of museum display, can 
be made very attractive as well as instruc- 
tive. Not only can man’s interuterine life 
be shown by means of alcoholic specimens, 
but this may be thoroughly well illustrated, 
and even the early stages rendered visible, 
with the aid of the wax and plaster models, 
which are now made with the greatest ex- 
actness and scientific accuracy. With such 
assistance, many of the most interesting 
facts of man’s history can be made clear. 
For example, as the various stages of em- 
bryonic life are unfolded, we see as it were 
an epitome of man’s past history, for it is 
one of the laws of biology that the develop- 
mental history of the individual is a re- 
sumé of the developmental history of the 
race. By the illustration of this law, as 
man is seen to pass successfully from the 
stage of a single cell, through that of a jelly- 
fish, when later he has the gill pouches of 
a fish, and the freely projecting tail of 
mammals, the fact is burned in that man 
is but a ‘link in the chain.’ 
Another subsection will be devoted to 
the skeleton. No matter where the skele- 
ton is to be placed or what part it is to play 
in the exhibit of other branches of zoology, in 
physical anthropology its place is not in the 
closet, but in full sight; and one museum 
SCIENCE. 
115 
at least in America has ably demonstrated 
that the skeleton can be made as beautiful, 
as attractive and as interesting as any sub- 
ject of a natural history exhibit.* Further- 
more, the skeleton may or may not be mor- 
phologically valuable; + it forms an extremely 
important part in any exhibit of man. Of 
all the bodily systems it is easiest pre- 
served and the most enduring; it alone of 
the body furnishes us with our knowledge 
of extinct and fossil man. 
The first object in the exhibit of the 
skeleton is to make easily familiar the 
names, positions and relative importance of 
the various members, individual bones and 
parts of bones; in other words, there should 
first be an illustrated text-book of normal 
human osteology. The visitor is then pre- 
pared for something better and we may 
next show the development of the skeleton. 
First to be shown would be the foetal skele- 
ton in ligamentous preparations, and then a 
series of articulated skeletons, ranging in 
age from birth to full maturity, terminating 
with the skeleton of old age. The attempt 
may next be made to show the range of 
variation of the skeleton, not for the Eu- 
ropean race, but for man, drawing for our 
material upon all races. This series can be 
made of the greatest interest, and when 
properly formed and labeled is of the utmost 
importance. We should have in this group 
two series, one showing the descriptive 
variations or those which can easily be de- 
tected by the eye and readily and fully 
described in the labels; the second series 
illustrates those variations which are best 
described by terms of mathematical pre- 
cision. As an example of the first series 
we may mention, to take the skull alone, 
the variations in the sutures or lines of 
articulation of the bones, their degree of 
serration, the time in life of closure, the 
* The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Physiology 
in Philadelphia. 
+ Cf. Minot’s Human Embryology, p. 422. 
