must be remembered, that preparations in a museum, do not
admit, without unnecessary duplicates, of the same facility of
arrangement as the objects embraced in the syllabus of a course
of lectures, or in the index to a book on the same subject:
parts closely joined to each other, though not accessary
to the same function, are often best exhibited together;
thus, in the case before us, the close anatomical connection
which exists between the genital and urinary organs, renders
it much more convenient and instructive to exhibit them in
the same preparation, than separately, and consequently more
proper, when the chief object is facility of reference, to arrange
them under the same class and order.
Respecting the sub-arrangements adopted in reference to the
different kinds of morbid lesions in each organ or part, it may
be easily understood that none such could be invented, applicable
equally to all the cases in a collection like this,—perpetually
on the increase. As far, however, as it could be managed,
the following order has been followed. Diseases the consequence
of simple inflammation are placed first; after which
follow, with more or less regularity, scrofulous diseases; hydatids
; derangements of form; diseases of a malignant
character; lesions, the result of mechanical or chemical
agency ; and, lastly, preparations in comparative pathology.
This plan had been fully carried out, and the catalogue
prepared for press in accordance with it; when, unexpectedly,
it became necessary to introduce into every section, a whole
series of new preparations—a rich donation from the professors
in the school, to the College;—by which additions, some apparent
confusion has unavoidably crept into the arrangement.
These preparations still, however, remain in the museum
attached to the school; and, in the catalogue, an asterisk
distinguishes them from the others.
In preparing the catalogue for publication, every exertion
has been made to secure an accurate report, both of the history
and recent pathological appearances of every preparation.
The account given of each is, in fact, a condensed
abstract, made by the author from the most authentic sources,
viz—either from the verbal or written communication of the
donor, or from some printed statement authorised by him,—
all such abstracts being studiously curtailed to such dimensions,
that, while connecting intelligibly the post mortem
appearances with the history of the disease during life, they
might not be unsuited to the pages of a work like the
present.
In anticipation of an objection which may be taken to the
pathological nomenclature employed, as being unsettled, and,
in some places, perhaps, antiquated, the author has to plead,
in his excuse, that the terms are not all of his own choosing;
and that, to many things in the collection, names, proper in
their day, were given long before the march of modern improvement
had changed them, and in which it has not been
deemed expedient to make any alteration.