OBSERVATIONS ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE 
STUDY OF COMPARATIVE ANATOMY, 
WITH A TRANSLATION OF BLUMENBACIi’s CHAPTER ON THE STRUCTURE OF 
THE BONES. 
Human Anatomy and Physiology constitute the great foundation of all medi¬ 
cal science. A correct acquaintance with the structure and functions of the lower 
animals is not less essential to the physiologist and the student of Zoology than to 
the medical philosopher. No one can acquire a profound insight into the func¬ 
tions of the human organs, unless he have borrowed from Comparative Anatomy 
the clear and powerful light which that interesting science can alone supply. 
Structure, again, is the broad and solid basis upon which all consistent and phi¬ 
losophical arrangements of the animal kingdom must ultimately repose. Had the 
late Dr. Haighton, of London, wisely condescended to examine, previously to the 
promulgation of his views, the relative situation of the spleen in some of the infe¬ 
rior animals, we should never have been favoured with his specious but ephemeral 
theory of the physiology of that organ in the human body. If the great Linnaeus 
had been as sound a comparative anatomist, as he has shewn himself an accurate 
observer of the exterior forms of natural objects, the lobster could never have 
preposterously figured, in his System, among apterous insects. Nor by any zoolo¬ 
gist, even slightly cognizant of the anatomy and physiological peculiarities of the 
Cetacea., or Whale tribe, could these singularly constructed animals have been 
placed, or retained, as by the superficial Pennant, in the class of Fishes. 
The study of the animal kingdom, although not so obviously and directly 
useful, is almost as interesting to the man of business, and the student of the dif¬ 
ferent sciences, as to the medical practitioner. To all, it offers an occupation for 
the hour of leisure or retirement, not less salutary than delightful. The individual, 
upon whose habits of order, precision of thought, and accuracy of discrimination, 
success or failure in the paths of commerce or agriculture must mainly depend, 
will be gratefully surprized at the increased facilities and power which he cannot 
fail to acquire, in the performance of these intellectual operations, from the habit 
of observing, and arranging in his mind, the varied facts and phenomena which 
the field of animated nature is incessantly presenting to his view. And the agri¬ 
culturist, by an acquaintance with the principles of Comparative Anatomy and 
Physiology, will be best enabled to comprehend the nature and treatment of the 
diseases of those domestic animals in the well-being of which he is so deeply 
interested ; as, by an insight into the economy and transformations of the insect 
tribes, he can alone be prepared to effectually remedy, or avert, their frequently 
ruinous depredations on the produce of his fields. 
