No. 387.] THE PRESENT STATUS OF ANATOMY. 197 
no longer stands isolated; no longer can a thorough and exten- 
sive research in any specialty be conducted without reference 
to other specialties and other departments. And it is this 
which stands out so clearly in the science of anatomy as it is 
to-day. It is no longer an isolated study, but merely a part of 
a wider field of knowledge. In the past it was a land-locked 
sea, but the erosion of the smaller streams of discovery and, 
finally, the overwhelming flood of the evolution hypothesis 
swept away the barrier which separated it, and it is nowa small 
bay of the great ocean of morphology. In the past anatomy 
was human anatomy ; to-day it is synonymous with morphology. 
No longer do anatomists confine their attention to merely accu- 
rate descriptions of the details of the structure of the body; 
they seek to discover the significance of these details. Anatomy 
has become “denkende Anatomie,” to use the expression of 
Johannes Miiller; it is no longer tied to the apron-strings of 
its mother, Medicine, but, having come of age, has taken its 
place in the rank of the sciences, the Origin of Species and the 
Descent of Man having been its Declaration of Independence. 
How, then, can our knowledge of the structure of the human 
body be complete? Modern anatomy is not yet fifty years of age, 
and this is infancy compared with the sister sciences. All that 
has been accomplished from the time of Aristotle to the middle 
of the present century was largely merely a preparation, and the 
time that has elapsed since then has been far too short for the 
solution of all the problems which confront us. Goethe has said 
of another department of study: “ History must from time to 
time be rewritten, not because many new facts have been dis- 
covered, but because new aspects come into view, because the 
participant in the progress of an age is led to standpoints from 
which the past can be regarded and judged in a novel manner.” 
So it is with anatomy ; the new standpoint calls for a new inter- 
pretation of anatomical facts and a restatement of our knowledge 
of anatomy. 
It seems unnecessary to run the risk of tediousness by 
enumerating the problems of anatomy of to-day, their number 
being endless. I trust I have made its present standpoint 
clear, so clear that he who will may read between the lines and 
