A text-book of anatomy / edited by Frederic Henry Gerrish.

Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A text-book of anatomy / edited by Frederic Henry Gerrish. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    38/926 (page 34)
    Merely reading the text-book is productive of but little good. Many a man who has done this faithfully is utterly unable to answer a question which would be likely to be included in the list prepared by any competent board of examiners. The facts are so numerous, and often so seemingly unrelated to each other, the names of objects are so unlike anything previously known, and the allusions are so frequent to matters wliich must remain unexplained until a later part of the course, that it is wellnigh impossible to bring away from a single reading, however careful, much more than a chaotic impression of the sulyects considered. Some students in their desperation resort to the plan of verbal memorizing—learning word for woi'd the descriptions in the book. It is hard to conceive of a method more wasteful of energy and less fruitful of results. One who has done this may be able to pass a brilliant oral or written examination, but he has not begun to be an anatomist; he is helpless in the presence of the dissected subject, and incapable of using what he has studied in any practical way. A student should not allow himself to adopt this method. He must learn the fects in such a way that a permanent image of every object is produced in his mind, and thus his knowledge will be available at the bedside. Of course it is necessary to acquire a nomenclature—to learn the names of the objects dealt with—for without these labels of things it is impracticable to receive information, to retain it easily, or to impart it after it has l)een gained. But this is a vastly difl'erent thing from committing to memory the precise phraseology in which any author, however learned and eloquent, has framed his presentation of the facts. The clearer and more forcible a statement in the book, the better is it for the student; but, the idea having been grasped, its clothing of words should be ignored. The student should be satisfied with nothing less than such a compre- hension of the fact that he can lucidly convey it in his own language to one who never heard of it before. It is generally very advantageous for the student to have before him the object while he is reading the description of it, for thus he is able to verify or correct the account Avhich is given, and to get more concrete and enduring ideas of the various qualities of the thing itself. When osteology is under considera- tion, it is not difficult to pursue tliis ideal course ; for even if the student cannot afford to buy a complete articulated skeleton, he can obtain by a small expendi- ture a sufficient number of separate bones to supply almost all of his needs. The little outlay required for this purpose will be more than justified by the returns, however impecunious he may be. Many of the organs cannot be j^reserved in such condition that they can be studied to advantage in any such way as can the bones ; Init as substitutes for them w^e have casts and models—the former representing exactly the external form, size, and color of the originals, the latter in many cases doing this and also showing some details of internal structure. Both casts and models may be more instructive to the beginner than the objects for which they stand, even supposing the latter to be entirely normal, inasmuch as the real specimens are generally so soft and flabby tliat they do not retain their shape as do their artificial rej^resen- tatives, which are made of rigid materials and possess the additional merit of c<iin])arative indestructiV)ility and can be used year after year without appreciable diminution of value. When minute parts are in question models are far prefer- able to the real objects, as they are of coUosal size. The pigmy organ tells its story in a tiny voice which we cannot understand unaided ; the giant model sliouts its message in tones which a whole roomful of people can hear. But even casts and models are usually not available except in medical schools, and we are conse(pientl\' driven to employ pictures, which, fortunately, are to be had in such abundance and of so admirable quality that we often hardly miss the the really ideal means of illustration. Every one learns more quickly from a good ])ictorial representation than from the best description, for the mind stores up the impressions of form and color which enter it by the cliannel of sight far more eagerly and tenaciously than it does those which reach it by way of spoken