This article is only available in the PDF format. Download the PDF to view the article, as well as its associated figures and tables.
The regular bi-weekly meeting of the Biological Society was held on Friday, Nov. 30, when Dr. Frank Baker read a paper entitled, "The Natural Study of Anatomy."
Dr. Baker's paper was an exposition of the faults of method in the ordinary English text-books of anatomy, with suggestions toward a remedy. The anatomy of the text-books is too mechanical and hardly deserves the name of science, there being no attempt to gradually unfold and develop the subject, as in other sciences. Without preliminary notions the student is plunged at once into the dry details of a geometric description of surfaces and their relations, all interest of practical application or of intelligent comprehension of the meaning of what is disclosed by dissection being suppressed. The alliance between anatomy and physiology is indissoluble, a certain violence being done to either science when its twin is suppressed. This should be kept in view, and