REVIEWS. 
—oo—— 
Muscurar Homoxoairs.* —It is now nearly a century (1774) 
since Vicq d’ Azyr made the first detailed comparison between the 
anterior and posterior limbs; in doing which he was truly said to 
have “founded a new kind of comparative anatomy involving a 
study of the relations which exist between different parts of the 
body of the same animal.” His special method of comparison was 
very defective and has been followed by few; but his general idea 
of the limbs as similar and parallel parts which repeat each other 
in a serial manner one behind the other, has been adopted by 
nearly all those who have since examined the subject ; the excep- 
tions being Gerdy, Foltz, Wyman, and three of the latter’s 
pupils, Folsom, Coues, and the writer of this notice; all these 
have recognized a symmetrical relation between the anterior and 
posterior regions of the body and the limbs, which was first 
clearly and impartially discussed by “the most accomplished as 
well as the most distinguished anatomist of this country,” ț three 
years before the present series of papers began to appear. 
Dr. Coues’s first paper is occupied with a very clear and intelligi- 
ble discussion of the general ideas involved in the subject; clear, 
that is, to those who are already familiar with the “tools of 
thought” peculiar to this department of knowledge, which is some- 
times, with a shade of derision, called “transcendental” anatomy ; 
Dr. Coues accepts the adjective in so far as it expresses ‘‘ the tran- 
scendent importance of investigations that can alone bring order 
out of a chaotic mass of observed ‘facts, and make a philosophy of 
anatomy possible.” There was some ground for the ridicule 
heaped upon Oken and Carus and St. Hilaire, who were the pio- 
neers in this, till then unbroken, wilderness of homologies; no 
wonder the marvellous things which they for the first time beheld, 
so charmed and excited them that they became, as it were, intoxi- 
* Antero-posterior Symmetry, with especial reference to the Muscles of the Limbs. 
By pHo Coues, A.M., M.D., Ph.D., Assistant Surgeon United States Army. The Med- 
ical ord, N. Y., June Ist, July Ist, July 15th, August 15th, September: Ist, October 
e prone 15th, 1870. t. 
_tOn Symmetry and Homology in Limbs. By Jeffries Wyman. Proc. Bost. Soc. Nal 
Hist., June, 1867. 
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