An elementary treatise on human anatomy / by Joseph Leidy.

  • Leidy, Joseph, 1823-1891
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An elementary treatise on human anatomy / by Joseph Leidy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    7/960
    PREFACE. Twenty-eight years have passed since the publication of a former edition of the present work, entitled “An Elementary Treatise on Human Anatomy,” and it is at the repeated solici- tation of medical students, who have been pupils of the author, that another edition has now been prepared. With the excellent and admirably illustrated text-books on the same subject from the English press, such a work may seem to be inferior and superfluous; hut the experience of the author as a teacher leads him to believe that our students generally desire, if they do not require, such a treatise as he has attempted to provide them. With the view of facilitating the study of anatomy and its com- mitment to memory, in the employment of the multitude of necessary technical terms, as a rule, one name for an organ or part is used, and that one selected which is simplest and most expressive of its character. The name, also, as far as may be permitted, is rendered into English. Many phrases in common use as names have been curtailed of what have appeared un- necessary portions, and sometimes the adjective portion of the phrase has been retained, in preference to the substantive por- tion, where, for various reasons, it has seemed more appropriate. AVhere names of persons are applied to parts they are generally avoided, and others in all respects better adapted to the pur- pose are used. Some further attempts have been made to im- prove the nomenclature, and it is hoped that the experiment may prove successful in helping the student in acquiring a knowledge of the subject. While the author regards with favor the proposed improvement in anatomical nomenclature of able authorities, he has not followed them completely, in