human
Yes, said Mr. Welland,
gpt
Mm-yas--Vesalius. Not the most recent but still the best.
human
This is a man, said Amadeus Welland.
gpt
You've glimpsed him, clad in garments, and in a skin--itself an organ of first importance, but forget it for the moment and look on him here, flayed. You can imagine, I suppose, what these are--these flowing, overlapping bands?
human
Muscles, surely?
gpt
Yes. Place your left hand by your right armpit, here, now draw your right arm leftward; what bunches under your fingers is this, here in the drawing, and the name of it is _Pectoralis major_, and you may find some little trouble in remembering it.
human
I will try to remember it.
gpt
I am glad you said 'try.' I have spent fifty-three years striving to overcome that vanity wherewith all men are born. You'll also try, and succeed, in remembering the names of all the other muscles in this drawing, and in this one where the fella turns you his flayed back, and in all these other drawings further on. You will reflect that muscles, while of major importance, are not more important than all the organs that live below them in their manifold occasions--since these also you must remember, all of them, their names, their functions so far as we know them, the many changes that will affect them in youth and age, sickness and health. Here, for example, is the diagram of the bony frame that bears us. When my own studies began I had first to learn these bones--all of them, naturally, their names, position, function whether in action or repose--mm-yas, as you will. I do recall my teacher once struck me across the face with a dry bone called the radius--this one--because I called it the ulna, for the which I later praised him--with reservations.
human
Reservations, sir?
gpt
It was possible for him, said Mr. Welland lightly, and took snuff.
human
It would not be possible for me to strike--a student. Fi-_choo_-shoo! And here, sir, is a representation of the human heart....
gpt
There will be times, said Mr. Welland, removing a gray cat from a cushion on a three-legged stool by the western window, where she had slept through the lesson, so that he might sit on the stool himself with the late sun behind his shoulder--