INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 
751 
of the sciences. So you see that if the world is a very old 
world, as geology shows; if its surface required vast periods 
for the changes it has undergone before it became fit for 
human habitation, so the human mind is subject to the same 
divine laws; and even science, or the knowledge of facts, grows 
upon the same gradual, patient, but sure principles. “ Sound 
knowledge,” says the Bev. Edwin Sidney, (( seldom takes a 
great leap when it first comes amongst us; it enters by slow 
and sure movements. The light of genuine science first 
appears as a spark which subsequently is fanned by industry 
into a flame; false speculations, on the contrary, are mostly 
a blaze of straw.” Yet, gentlemen, observe that the sooner you 
awaken personally to your labours, the more rapid and entire 
your acquisitions will be. For if you can put on intensity of will, 
you can learn in one session more, and more brightly, than 
any dawdling and lethargic mind can learn in its whole 
existence. 
Firstly, you have to be acquainted with descriptive anatomy 
—that is to say, with the parts, and the relative position of 
the parts, of the animals you dissect. By this means you 
learn the mechanical and physical structure [of the organiza¬ 
tion, the associated forms of the bones and muscles, blood¬ 
vessels, and nerves, and all those parts more or less subject to 
the volition of animal life, also the forms and connection of 
the viscera, parts destined to supply and elaborate the 
materials necessary for the repair, perpetuation, and repro¬ 
duction of the organism, and ministering to instincts and 
feelings which may be said to be the forces of animal intelli¬ 
gence. Now, the more you are at home in your knowledge 
of anatomy, the more readily can you trace diseases to their 
seat, and the better will be your diagnosis; that is to say, 
your accurate distinction of one disease from another. For 
disease, gentlemen, is for the most part anatomical, by which 
I mean that some special organ is generally primarily 
attacked. You ought, in the first place, to be aware of this 
fact; and in the second, to look out for those signs which in¬ 
dicate the locality of the suffering organ. Obviously your 
competency to exercise such a faculty depends upon your 
anatomical knowledge. Moreover, you will require the same 
knowledge in the practice of surgery; for often in an opera¬ 
tion some nerve, or blood-vessel, or vital organ, requires to be 
skilfully avoided by your knife, and you cannot effect this 
unless anatomy has taught you where they are situated. 
Besides descriptive anatomy, histology or structural anatomy 
must claim some share of your attention, as teaching you the 
more minute constitution of the organism. This branch of 
