18 COMPARATIVE ANATOMY BEFORE CUVIER 



the great Italian anatomists Vesalius, Fallopius and Fabricius, 

 and the first systematists (though their "systems" were 

 little more than catalogues) Rondeletius, Aldrovandus and 

 Gesner. 



The anatomists, however, took little interest in problems 

 of pure morphology ; the anatomy of the human body was 

 fur them simply the necessary preliminary of the discovery of 

 the functions of the parts the}' were quite as much 

 physiologists as anatomists. 



One of them, Fabricius, made observations on the 

 development of the chick (1615). Harvey, who was a pupil 

 of Fabricius, likewise published an account of the embryology 

 of the chick. 1 In his philosophy and habit of thought Harvey- 

 was a follower of Aristotle. It is worth noting that in his 

 Exercitationes anatomicae de motu cordis (1628) there is 

 a passage which dimly foreshadows the law of recapitulation 

 in development which later had so much vogue. 2 



A stimulating contribution to comparative anatomy was 

 made by Belon, 3 who published in 1555 a Histoirc dc la 

 nature dcs Oyseau.v, in which he showed opposite one another 

 a skeleton of a bird and of a mammal, giving the same names 

 to homologous bones. The anatomy of animals other than 

 man was indeed not altogether neglected at this time. 

 Goiter (1535-1600) studied the anatomy of Vertebrates, 

 discovering among other things the fibrous structure of the 

 brain. Garlo Ruini of Bologna wrote in 1598 a book on the 

 anatomy of the horse. 4 Somewhat later Severino, professor 

 at Naples, dissected many animals and came to the conclusion 



1 R.vercitationes de generatione animalium, 1651 For an account of 

 Harvey's work on generation and development, see Em. Radl's masterly 

 Geschichte der biologischen Theoricn, i., pp. 31-8, Leipzig, 1905. 



The passage runs : " Sic natura perfecta et divina nihil faciens 

 frustra, nee quipiam animal! cor addidit, ubi non erat opus, neque 

 priusquam esset ejus usus, fecit ; sed iisdem gradibus in formationc 

 cujuscumque animalis, transiens per omnium animalium constitutiones 

 (ut ita diram) ovum, vermem, f<ctum, perfectionem in singulis 

 acquirit." 



' Sec I. C.eofifroy St Hilairc, E ssai's de /.oologie generate, p. 71, Paris, 

 1841. 



M. Foster, Lectures on the History of Physiology, Cambridge, p. 53, 

 1901. 



