The history of the study of anatomy in Cambridge : a lecture delivered January 29, 1891, on the opening of the new anatomical lecture room / by A. Macalister.

  • Macalister, Alexander, 1844-
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The history of the study of anatomy in Cambridge : a lecture delivered January 29, 1891, on the opening of the new anatomical lecture room / by A. Macalister. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    THE HISTORY OF ^HlTSTUDY OF ANATOMY IN CAMBRIDGE. In the lives both of individuals and of institutions there are certain events which mark out the subdivision of their history into epochs, and which are on that account naturally suggestive of retrospection. The circumstances under which we meet here to-day are eminently of this character. The liberality of the Senate of the University has provided the Anatomical Department with this magnificent residence, and, as we formally take possession of our new laboratories, it will be profitable to look backward and review the position which the science, for whose cultivation these buildings are provided, has hitherto taken among the studies of this Universit}^ The attempt to trace the early history of any subject of study is beset with difficulties. The organisation of a mediaeval studium generale on the one hand, and on the other that of a well-equipped modern university wdth its suite of laboratories, each fitted for one particular branch of research, present differ- ences comparable with those existing between a protozoon and a vertebrate: and as in the evolution of the organism it is seldom easy to identify the stage at which a given mass of protoplasm assumes a specific function and foreshadows the development of a separate organ; so there is the same kind of difficulty in determining the exact point of time at which the teaching of any one branch was differentiated from that of the generalised mass of knowledge comprehended of old under the title of Philosophy. 1—2