Anatomy, Histology and Embryology in the First Year — the body, region by region

A homoeopath’s attention is on the whole person, but the whole person has a structure, and that structure has to be known precisely. Anatomy, Histology and Embryology — HomUG-AHE in the NCH curriculum — is the First Professional subject that supplies it. It is one of the pre-clinical foundations of BHMS: the ground on which physiology, pathology and every clinical subject of the later years will stand.

The CBDC course content arranges the subject in nine chapters. Three of them are general — the principles that hold everywhere in the body — and six are regional, walking through the body one part at a time.

**General Anatomy** begins at the smallest scale: modern concepts of the cell and its components, cell division and its types, and the basic tissues. It then turns to genetics — DNA and RNA, chromosomes, genes, inheritance, the genetic basis of diseases — and here the curriculum does something distinctly homoeopathic, asking the student to integrate that genetic understanding with the homoeopathic concept of miasmatic influence. The chapter closes with the grammar of the whole subject: the definition and subdivisions of anatomy, its history, the anatomical terms of position and movement, and the general anatomy of skin and fasciae, muscles, bones, joints, blood vessels, the lymphatic system, nerves and glands.

**Developmental Anatomy (Embryology)** follows the body’s own beginning: spermatogenesis and oogenesis, fertilisation, cleavage and implantation, the bilaminar germ disc, gastrulation and the germ layers with their derivatives, somites, ossification, the notochord, the folding of the embryo and formation of the primitive gut, and the placenta.

**General Histology** is the body under the microscope: epithelial and connective tissue, cartilage, bone, muscle, nervous tissue, skin, lymphoid organs, blood vessels and glands.

**The regional chapters** then take the body apart in the order most anatomy courses use, and each ends, as every chapter in this syllabus does, with revision.

The **Upper Extremity** chapter covers the pectoral region and axilla, the mammary gland, the brachial plexus and axillary artery, the back and the spaces around the scapula, the shoulder, elbow, radio-ulnar and wrist joints, the arm, cubital fossa and forearm with their muscles, nerves and vessels, the radial, ulnar and median nerves and their arteries, the retinacula, the palm and its spaces, and venous drainage.

The **Lower Extremity** chapter moves from the lumbar plexus and femoral nerve through the front, medial compartment and back of the thigh, the femoral triangle, the gluteal region, the sacral plexus and sciatic nerve with its divisions, the popliteal fossa, the leg in its front, back and side, the retinacula at the ankle, the sole, the hip, knee and ankle joints, the arches of the foot and venous drainage.

The **Thorax** chapter covers the trachea, pleura and lungs, the mediastinum in its parts, the pericardium and heart with its blood supply, the great vessels, the azygos vein and thoracic duct, the oesophagus and descending aorta, and the diaphragm — with the systemic embryology of heart and lung and the systemic histology of trachea and lung.

**Abdomen, Pelvis and Perineum** is the longest regional chapter: the abdominal wall and peritoneum; stomach, liver, gall bladder and biliary apparatus, spleen, duodenum, pancreas, small and large intestine, caecum and appendix; the portal venous system; kidney, suprarenal glands, ureter and bladder; the abdominal aorta and posterior abdominal wall; the male and female reproductive organs; rectum and anal canal; the walls of the pelvis and pelvic diaphragm, the perineal pouches and ischiorectal fossa. Its embryology covers the development of the digestive and urogenital systems, and its histology the digestive, urinary, suprarenal and reproductive tissues.

**Head, Neck and Face** covers the scalp and face, the lacrimal apparatus, the triangles of the neck and deep cervical fascia, the suboccipital triangle and vertebral canal, the salivary glands, the muscles of mastication and temporomandibular joint, the thyroid, the cranial cavity with its dura, venous sinuses and pituitary, the orbit and eyeball, the oral cavity, palate, tonsil and tongue, pharynx, larynx, nose and sinuses, the ear and Eustachian tube, and the carotid, vertebral and jugular vessels — with the histology of thyroid, pituitary and tongue, and the embryology of the pharyngeal arches.

**Central Nervous System: Brain** closes the syllabus: meninges and cerebrospinal fluid, spinal cord, medulla, pons, cerebellum, midbrain, thalamus and hypothalamus, the ventricles, the cerebrum with its functional areas, the basal ganglia, the corpus callosum and internal capsule, the blood supply of the brain, the cranial nerves, and the development of the brain.

Anatomy does not stay inside its own subject in the first year. The Repertory syllabus asks students to correlate the chapters of Kent’s Repertory with the Hahnemannian anatomical schema and to find the rubrics that relate to anatomical parts; Physiology studies the same systems in function; Pharmacy has a chapter on its relation to anatomy. The student who learns a region well in this subject is also learning where that region appears in the literature of homoeopathy.

As this room fills, a student will find study pieces written to this syllabus: orientations to each regional chapter, notes on the general principles that make regional anatomy easier to hold, embryology explained step by step, and pieces that follow a single region across Anatomy, Physiology and the repertory’s anatomical chapters. Everything here carries the first-year tag and the Anatomy, Histology and Embryology category. The room grows at the pace of careful writing.