Where we stand in comparative osteology. 



By 



R. W. Shufeldt, M. D. 



Washington, D. C. 



Ti 



here will be no question in the mind of any one who 

 possesses any appreciation of scientific research as to the value 

 of such a study as comparative osteology. It is quite as appa- 

 rent to the average physician as it is to the technical compara- 

 tive anatomist, who draws upon his means, time and labor in 

 prosecuting such investigations. Comparative osteology, as an 

 important department of general biology, falls distinctly in this 

 category, and it is a subject that has continuously engaged the 

 attention of scientific investigators ever since the time when 

 Hippocrates wrote, upwards of five centuries before Christ. As 

 we pass in review what has been accomphshed during this long 

 lapse of the ages, and what the motives have been prompting 

 such researches, we find, that as a rule, the workers generally 

 have had one of several ends in view in their undertakings, and 

 it has come to be that the literature now is indeed a vast one. 

 In the earliest times, far more than is the case at present, the 

 students of the structure of animals lower in the scale than man 

 undertook their dissections for the sole purpose of elucidating 

 human anatomy, to the end that a more certain light could be 



