This article is only available in the PDF format. Download the PDF to view the article, as well as its associated figures and tables.
A study of comparative anatomy in any field of medicine is valuable for the insight it affords the student of the evolution of structure in the human. This is particularly true in ophthalmology, where function is so closely related to structure. We have learned a great deal of the physiology of the human eye from comparative anatomy; for example, much of our knowledge of dark adaptation is supported by evidence derived from histological examination of various species of animals which have only one type of photoreceptor, i. e., rods or cones.
This book covers the same material treated in the well-known work of Walz on the vertebrate eye. In addition, there is a chapter on the invertebrate eye and a useful chapter on the preparation of specimens, a glossary of animal names used in the text, and a good bibliography. The material is arranged in anatomical sequence rather than from