Text-Book of Anatomy

Abstract

AT the present time the human anatomist tries to sit as comfortably as he may on the two stools of science and practice. It must be admitted that few do it with success. While his posture evokes the indulgent smile of the man of science, the professed zoologist and morphologist, the, man of practice, the surgeon and physician, regards it as altogether unprofitable and impracticable. To reconcile the views of these two contending factions, to make the theory of anatomy assist in its practical application to the sick and the facts of anatomy illumine the laws of mammalian morphology, is the first and chief difficulty of anyone who now or afterwards undertakes the preparation of a text-book on human anatomy. No living anatomist is likely to be more successful in overcoming this difficulty than Prof. D. J. Cunningham, who is deservedly held in the highest esteem by the surgeon and physician, as well as by the man of science. While admitting that Prof. Cunningham has been more successful than any one of his predecessors, one rises from the study of this work with the feeling that, in spite of rapid improvement, it will take decades of progress to make the theory of anatomy fit its facts as a glove does the hand. Text-Book of Anatomy. Edited by D. J. Cunningham Pp. xxix + 1309; 824 wood engravings from original drawings. (Edinburgh: Pentland, 1902.)