There are many occasions in academic life where a chance conversation may lead to something of lasting value. Coffee breaks are no exception. It was the intention of a former head of a department in which I worked for all available staff to stop for a communal coffee break in the staff room at 11 o’clock each morning. The aim was to allow all staff to mingle and talk. This staff did almost religiously. Indeed, some people were only ever seen at coffee break. A particular reminiscence I have comes from a coffee break in the late 1980s.
I remember overhearing a conversation between two anatomy lecturers. One asked the other where he thought anatomy ended, that is, down to what level of bodily structure one might go before leaving anatomy and entering another discipline. The general conclusion to the discussion was that anatomy ended at the tissue level—beyond this one was entering the realm of cell biology or cytology. Soon after that came molecular biology. Neither of the anatomists gave an argument to substantiate their conclusion. It seemed to be based on a description of structures found at different structural levels. The lack of an argument has stimulated me to mull over the question ever since.
Was it all just a matter of tissue being the lowest level to which our scalpels could take us? The term anatomy, in the traditional sense, does, after all, mean 'cutting up.' Such an argument makes practical sense. Tissues are the last things we can make out with the naked eye. Surprisingly, magnifying glasses are not part of regular dissecting room equipment.
Or was there some other conceptual reason to stop at the tissue level? There are possible avenues along which to proceed. I can raise the question and offer some thoughts, but I don’t expect to be definitive.
The title I am using for this post asks, ‘Where does anatomy start/stop?’ It’s the ‘start/stop’ that should attract attention. It emphasises a direction of travel. ‘Start’ implies that there is the building up from a certain level. ‘Stop’ implies that there is the descent down from some other level above. The question this raises is, ‘What is an anatomist’s direction of travel or approach—top-down or bottom-up?’ Top-down is the direction traditionally adopted for dissection; it is the direction that naturally follows given a body we want to explore and understand. A bottom-up approach is less easy in a practical sense. It is a synthetic approach. To follow it we need to know in advance what is above—we can only get that information from having taken a top-down approach in the first place. Thus, a bottom-up approach is only possible conceptually given prior knowledge.
There is only one book I have ever come across that has taken such an approach. That is Reconstructive Anatomy by Maurice Arnold. Unfortunately, I have yet to find a copy in any of the online libraries offering sight of out-of-print books. Details at Google Books.
