EME 
AMERICAN NATURALIST 
Vot: XXXIII, ~ March, 1899. No. 387. 
THE PRESENT STATUS OF ANATOMY? 
J. PLAYFAIR McMURRICH. 
It is a prevalent belief among the laity that anatomy is a 
practically completed study, that there is little or nothing to be 
added to our knowledge of the structure of the human body ; 
and for such a belief there is a certain amount of excuse. The 
human body has been an object of anatomical study and inves- 
tigation for centuries ; hundreds of volumes, ranging from duo- 
decimos to folios, have been written about its structure; thou- 
sands on thousands of bodies have been dissected; and why, 
then, are we not in possession of a full knowledge of the 
subject ? 
Such reasoning overlooks the fact that in every science there 
is not one but two elements, the material and the intellectual, 
which react upon one another, new observations producing new 
generalizations, and these again pointing the way to new fields 
for observation. But the misconception as to the present 
status of anatomy depends upon a misconception of a more fun- 
damental idea, z.e., of what is meant by science. To the popu- 
lar mind science is merely the collecting of natural facts. The 
1 An address before the Catholepistemiad Club of the University of Michigan, 
Dec. 16, 1898. 
: 185 
