Anatomy – New World Encyclopedia – Info:Main Page – New …

From New World Encyclopedia

Anatomy may refer either to the internal structure and organization of an organism, to any of the parts of an organism, or to the branch of biology that studies the internal structure and organization of living things and their parts. Such meanings of anatomy are synonymous with internal morphology (Towle 1989), which is to be distinguished from general morphology with its focus on external structure.

Since the function of a part is related to its structure, anatomy naturally is related to physiology, which refers either to the mechanical, physical, and biochemical functions of living organisms and their parts or to the study of those functions.

Anatomy comprises the subdivisions of animal anatomy and plant anatomy (or phytotomy). (Study of external plant structure is known as plant morphology.) Anatomy may also be subdivided either regionally or systemically; that is, relating to particular bodily regions, such as the head and chest, or to specific systems, such as the nervous or respiratory systems.

Major branches of the science of anatomy include comparative anatomy, cytology, histology, and human anatomy. Comparative anatomy is the study of similarities and differences in the structure and organization of organisms; cytology is the study of cells and examines their internal anatomy; and histology is the study of aggregates of cells called tissues. Human anatomy, or anthropotomy, is a special field within anatomy and studies structures and systems of the human body.

The term anatomy comes from the Greek anatomia, from anatemnein, meaning to cut up or cut open.

Like all fields of knowledge, anatomy is necessarily tied to a conceptual framework. Galen, the Greek anatomist whose anatomical studies and conceptual framework undergirded Western medicine for 15 centuries, taught that the blood moved to and from the heart under the impetus of Aristotle's substance "quintessence," and that three human soulsvegetative, animal, and rationalresided respectively in the liver, the heart, and the brain, the three largest solid organs in the body. Galen's anatomy and medical model remained largely intact until the publication by Andrea Vesalius in 1543 of his detailed drawings of human anatomy, which became the basis for a radical revisioning of human physiology and of medical treatment. (Bergland, 1985)

From the time of Vesalius, anatomy has been a key field of scientific investigation that from one perspective has been stripping away the vestiges of mystery and wonder about the human body. Yet as anatomical studies reveal the human body components, the studies also open the challenge of how these multiple layers of components achieve their integrated functioning and how they could have come to exist.

The history of anatomy as a science extends from the earliest examinations of sacrificial victims to the sophisticated analysis of the body performed by modern scientists. It has been marked, over time, by a continually developing understanding of the functions of organs and structures in the body. Methods have also advanced dramatically, from examination of animals, through dissection of cadavers, and on to technologically complex techniques developed in the twentieth century. The following is largely a history centered on the developing science of studying human anatomy.

The study of anatomy began at least as early as 1600 B.C.E., the date of the ancient Egyptian Edwin Smith papyrus. This treatise identifies the heart, liver, spleen, kidneys, uterus, and bladder, and indicates that blood vessels come from the heart. Other vessels are described, some carrying air, some mucus, while two to the right ear are said to carry the "breath of life," and two to the left ear the "breath of death." The Ebers papyrus (c. 1550 B.C.E.) features a treatise on the heart. It notes that the heart is the center of the blood supply, with vessels attached for every member of the body. The Egyptians seem to have known little about the function of the kidneys and made the heart the meeting point of a number of vessels that carried all the fluids of the bodyblood, tears, urine, and sperm (Porter 1997).

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Anatomy - New World Encyclopedia - Info:Main Page - New ...