618 PROFESSOR WILSON’S 
The limitation of medicine to one or other of the departments 
of practice which are here implied is unquestionably conducive 
to the improvement of our science. Internal medicine, as well 
as that which is external, is improved by separate culture ; for the 
entire subject, although not too extensive for the grasp of a single 
individual, is far too vast to reap advantage from his labours, 
and can alone be perfected by separate study. Nevertheless, 
medicine and surgery combined form the common practice of our 
country ; they constitute the field of utility and exertion of the 
general practitioner, and in his hands are signally successful. 
Britain may boast with pride that her practitioners of medicine 
are surpassed by none others in the world. 
Recurring to the subject of medical studies, from which I have 
somewhat deviated, and taking medicine as the pinnacle of our 
temple, we have seen it to be raised upon an arch, representing 
by its one extremity internal medicine, and by the other external 
medicine or surgery. The pillars which support this arch are — 
Anatomy, 
Physiology, 
Chemistry, 
Therapeutics. 
Midwifery and Jurisprudence are cornices which run through the 
entire span of the arch, belonging alike to internal medicine and 
external medicine. Virtue, by its elements, Religion, Consci- 
entiousness, and Benevolence, constitute the foundation of our 
architecture; and Education, classical and intellectual, are the 
steps by which we ascend to its portals. 
Anatomy is that part of our science which teaches the struc- 
ture of the animal frame; the form, the size, and the position of 
its various parts, their mutual combinations and dependencies. 
It teaches us that the animal body is composed of bones and 
cartilages; of ligaments; of muscles, with their tendons and 
aponeuroses ; of bloodvessels with the propelling organ of the 
blood, the he’art ; of lymph-vessels and chyle-vessels ; of nerves, 
with their central masses, the brain and spinal cord ; of organs 
or viscera for the purification of the blood ; of others for the di- 
gestion of our food ; of others, again, for the perception of relation 
with surrounding objects ; and, lastly, of organs for the perpetua- 
tion of our race. While we examine these constituents in man 
alone, we are engaged in the study of Human Anatomy; and 
when we discover the necessity as well as the advantage of com- 
paring the structure of man with the rest of animals, a delightful 
episode, we occupy ourselves with Comparative Anatomy . The 
anatomist, however, is not long content with the bare enumera- 
tion of the constituents of the animal body, with their forms and 
