We have been favoured with the pamphlet of M. Auzouz, descriptive of the uses and plans of his ingenious invention, as well as with the Report of the Royal Academy of Physic at Paris on its peculiar merits and advantages. We give the following translation of it.
'Since, in 1822, after a number of experiments, and several years of incessant application, I published my first work on artificial anatomy, a kind of excitement arose in the schools of medicine, and amongst those individuals who are supposed to guide the public opinion. Hitherto the study of anatomy was confined to the amphitheatres; and it was not considered possible to perfect the study of it in any other manner. On the other hand, so many ineffectual attempts had been made to procure a regular and sufficient supply of subjects, that artificial anatomy became the subject of very contrary and dissimilar opinions.
'Some individuals, by a method of reasoning wholly divested of proof, beheld in artificial anatomy nothing less than the means of encouraging the idleness of the students, and a fallacious resource for the practitioner; whilst, on the other hand, others, exaggerating the benefits of it, beheld in it the means of dispensing with dissections; others, as is always the case when anything of a novel nature appears, declared the thing to be both impossible and impracticable; and the remainder were content with decrying it altogether, or they became the servile imitators of it.
'The academies, where judgment is always the result of profound deliberation, having announced the importance of this discovery, encouraged me to prosecute my plans and experiments, pointing out to me at the same time some imperfections in them. These learned societies scrupled not to place artificial anatomy above everything which had been hitherto done in France or in other countries, and to regard it as the means of facilitating the study of that particular branch of natural history.
'In the report which M. Le Baron Desgenettes made to the Academy of Medicine, on the 5th of September, 1823, he says, "If this work be continued, it cannot fail to be useful to those who devote themselves to the study of the medical science, and more especially to those who practise surgery and physic at a distance from the great cities."
'Professor Desruelles, in his report to the Medical Society, at their sitting on the 19th of November, 1823, says, "If we declare to you that a piece of artificial anatomy, placed in an amphitheatre, in exhibiting to the student the parts of which he is in search, as well as those which he ought to avoid, adjust, or even take away, may be useful to him, abridge his labour, and save him from many fruitless experiments; if we declare to you, that these pieces would be very advantageously placed in the studio of a painter; if we declare to you, that they might, more advantageously than books, remind the surgeons and physicians, not having the benefit of a corpse at hand, of the relations of certain parts; and finally, if we finish by showing to you certain individuals curious to become acquainted with their own formation, studying it with success, in order to obtain a superficial knowledge of anatomy, without having recourse to the disgusting and afflicting spectacle of a corpse,—then, gentlemen, so far from censuring our eulogium, you will approve of it; you will applaud the zeal of M. Auzouz, you will give encouragement to his efforts, and you will assist him to the utmost of your power, to enable him to succeed in rendering that perfect, which, under his hands, has already made such rapid advances to positive perfection."
'In the report made by Professor Dumeril to the Academy of Sciences, at its sitting on the 11th of April, 1825, he says, "No one is ignorant how great is the natural repugnance which is felt for the study of anatomy, and especially to the examination and inspection of those objects which form the subject of it, by all those persons who are not attached towards it by the necessary calls of their profession. It were desirable that general ideas of the organization of the human frame should be imparted to young people, and which ought to form a branch of their earliest education. Is it to be supposed that an educated man of the present day should be ignorant in what manner, and by what organs our motions are executed; in what consist the instruments by which our sensations and our principal functions are performed? Besides, it is indispensable that every skilful designer, who wishes to become a painter or a statuary, may be enabled, without applying himself to anatomical researches, to learn in what manner the forms are constantly modified in the motions by the organs by which they are either permitted or produced."'
M. Alard, in his report, made to the Academy of Medicine on the 5th of July, 1825, thus expressed himself.—"We will not dilate any further on the great utility of these pieces, which, doubtless, will soon be generally felt. It may be sufficient to add, that they are competent, by a preliminary knowledge of the situation of the relations of the parts, greatly to simplify the study of anatomy, by facilitating the dissections which are indispensable to the study of medicine; from which will result the eminent advantage of rescuing a great number of students from those accidents which are caused by a protracted stay in the dissecting theatres,—further, that they are well calculated to supply the place of corpses in those places where it is not possible to procure them; and that, by the study of similar pieces, and the dissection of certain animals, a knowledge can be acquired of the structure of the human body, sufficient for the majority of cases, and much more precise and indubitable than that which can be acquired by any other artificial means."
That celebrated man, M. Geoffrey St. Hilaire, says, in his report to the Institute on the 2nd of August, 1830, 'A general knowledge of the parts of the human body ought one day to constitute a part of natural history, and form an early branch of education amongst every class of society. Sooner or later, this study will be adopted in our schools; but this will never become, nor is it possible to be executed without the resources offered by the new branch of industry created by M. Auzouz.'