Elements of the general and minute anatomy of man and the mammalia : chiefly after original researches / by Fr. Gerber ; to which are added, notes and an appendix, comprising researches on the anatomy of the blood, chyle, lymph, thymous fluid, tubercle, &c., by George Gulliver.

  • Gerber, Fr.
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Elements of the general and minute anatomy of man and the mammalia : chiefly after original researches / by Fr. Gerber ; to which are added, notes and an appendix, comprising researches on the anatomy of the blood, chyle, lymph, thymous fluid, tubercle, &c., by George Gulliver. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    Anatomy, then, has the structure of organic bemgs for its object. But we do not limit our- selves to the study of the structure alone ; we have ever an eye to something beyond this — to the uses or functions, namely, of the organs we discover. A new science is therefore engrafted upon anatomy, — a science which treats of the functions of organised beings, and this is entitled Physiology. Like anatomy, physiology is sub- divided variously, and is appropriately designated according to the direction in which it is studied. We do not, however, speak of a morbid physiology as we do of a morbid anatomy, when we consider the functions of an organism in a state of disease. Pathology is the term which is here employed; so that pathology is to be understood as having the same relation to physiology which morbid anatomy has to normal anatomy. Anatomy and physiology, however, ought never to be viewed as sciences altogether disjoined and different; they are, indeed, so closely linked together, that they are all but one and the same: in anatomy, we study the organs in repose^ in physiology, we study them in action. It is now universally allowed that an adequate knowledge of the structure and functions of the human body is the only foundation of all medical science. Without this essential preliminary, it is just as impossible to distinguish disease, and to treat it rationally, as it is for a tree without roots to put forth blossoms and to bring fruit to matu- rity. Nor are the researches of the anatomist and