Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/562

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544
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

able anatomical works; and in illustration of his character it may be mentioned that one day Henry Brougham, afterward Lord Brougham, then on the staff of the Edinburgh Review, asked the doctor to give him half an hour's talk on anatomy, to enable him to write a critique on one of his (Barclay's) books. This is a fair sample of the capital on which the noble quack earned his scientific reputation. The anatomist refused the request and resented the impertinence. Dr. Barclay was, however, getting old, and he formed a partnership with Knox in the management of the school. He soon after died, and Dr. Knox became master of the establishment. He at once rose to unexampled popularity. In the first place, he was a man of profound, comprehensive, and thorough erudition. Anatomy was not with him a mere ordinary occupation, but an object of high philosophical research, and pursued with enthusiasm. He was early to recognize the two divisions—anatomical science and anatomical art—the former embracing the elucidation of the nature or structure and organization of animal bodies; the latter comprehending all those means and contrivances by which organisms can be dissected and demonstrated. He was one of the first of philosophic biologists. When he began to teach, human anatomy was treated very much as a superficial and technical pursuit, to be dispatched in a three months' course of dissections, by the majority of medical students. To some lecturers, a bone was a structure with certain physical features, and nothing more. Knox made it assume an historical position in the scale of organization; its size and form were obvious enough, but he sought in the osteogenesis, type, and homologues, to fix its place in the general superstructure of the animal series. In short, he gave not the mere description but the philosophy of the osseous form. "There was no circumlocution in his teachings; he aimed at a clear delineation of the work before him. He was more practical than minute, more suggestive than analytic in his systematic course; rather than linger on points of detail, he indicated the path to be pursued by the student. His mode of teaching was not suited to the 'grinding' or 'cramming' system; hence those who sought anatomy for examining boards went elsewhere. His prelections were well adapted to stimulate thought, as he meant them to do. Being a surgeon and pathologist, Knox could significantly apply anatomy to a practical calling; and as a physiologist of high aim, he looked to zoölogy as a sine qua non to the study of the higher philosophy of man himself."

Dr. Knox was an orator of the first class, a tight-made man, above the middle stature, of the nervo-sanguineous temperament, broad-chested, with an upright carriage, a firm and soldierly walk, and a free and lithesome action. He had a strikingly fine head, but a plain visage, an agreeably-toned voice, and a persuasive tongue that made captive every listener who could appreciate colloquial excellence. He had a weakness for elegance of dress, and attended carefully to all