Synopsis of the physiological series in the Christ Church Museum : arranged for the use of students after the plan of the Hunterian collection, and chiefly under the divisions of the Hunterian catalogue.

  • Christ Church (University of Oxford). Anatomical Museum.
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Synopsis of the physiological series in the Christ Church Museum : arranged for the use of students after the plan of the Hunterian collection, and chiefly under the divisions of the Hunterian catalogue. 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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    Xll the great characteristic of the animal series as a whole is the possession of a special apparatus for bringing the living being into conscious relation with matter external to it; so, variation in this apparatus forms the best ground- work for the broad distinctions of animal life. Of these great groups there are five; i. e. Vertebrata, Mollusca, Articulata, Radiata, Acrita. In each of the four first of these groups, the Nervous System undergoes a gradual degradation from the highest to the lowest. It cannot be said that a regular parallel degradation occurs in the other systems or functions, but that a general harmony or interdependency exists between the several parts of the Animal, rendering it capable of the exercise of its own peculiar mental faculties. In the lowest group no Nervous System has been detected, or in the case of those Animals in which it has been, it is probable that they will be found to have truer relations with a higher group. But in many cases, the highest species of a group, lower on the whole than an adjoining group, has some parts of its organization of a far higher degree of complexity than the same parts in the lower species of the superior group ; so that the groups may be represented by vertical lines placed upon ascend- ing steps in such a way that the upper part of the lower group is higher than the lower of the one next above it*. 5th. John Hunter arranged his dissections of the several organs together, in an ascending order; they may in this way be most readily studied and com- pared. A similar plan is followed here. But a reason has just been given why the student must be careful to consider the organs not only separately, but also in their relation to the other organs in the same Animal; inasmuch as organs in appearance structurally similar, may be, by their collocation, Physiologically different f. 6th. A knowledge of the mechanical constituents or textures of Animals, and of the variations in their kind and in their arrangement, is essential to a knowledge of the changes which take place in them. But these changes are * Any student desirous of pursuing this part of Natural History should decide upon ex- amining, zoologically and anatomically, with any good Work on the subject, some group in the Fauna of the neighbourhood, as the Fish, with their development, or the Reptiles, or some genus of Articulata, or the land or fresh-water Mollusca, or some portion of the Infusoria, in any locality he may select. t See Owen’s Lectures, Vol. I. Lecture I. p. 6.